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Laine

I’m not at all a bold person. Maybe it’s out of fear of

rejection. Maybe it’s because I know if I don’t go for it, then I can’t be let down. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned this past month without Drew, it’s that even if you try to physically block out whatever you’re hiding from, you can’t escape it in your mind.

Sure, you can try new things in an attempt to forget the old. You can force yourself to look for the good in subpar situations. Sometimes, you can even find it. But you’ll always be stuck wondering what could have been. You’ll always be left with thewhy notsand thewhat ifs.

With Drew, however, I always find myself taking the leap, taking control of situations I normally would have just written off as not meant to be. As much as I’m a believer in thewhat’s meant to happen will happenmentality, I couldn’t just let what happened with Drew be what happened tous.

I’m sure, in time, I could get over her, but I could never get over our story. I could never get over how we left it. Most importantly, I could never get over the fact that I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

She was the person who made me feel alive when I had been just surviving. The person who added life to my days while I was onlyfocused on getting through them. In all the uncertainty in my life right now, the one thing I know I want is to start living every day, not just surviving, and I don’t want to live that life without Drew in it.

I suppose that's why I find myself at her doorstep right now, ready to do the boldest, most adrenaline-rushing thing I’ve ever done.

My hand is shaking as I reach toward the door, and I’m contemplating whether it’s too late to run back to my car and speed off. I could probably make it halfway back to California by tomorrow and never show my face in Georgia again.

Unfortunately, as appealing as that may sound, I know it’s too late. I’m already standing here at her doorstep, probably looking like the sickest, most pathetic idiot in love. So instead, I ring the doorbell and give four weak knocks to her door.

Instantly, I’m transported back to the memory of the first time I knocked on her door. My hands were shaky then as well, but only from the nerves of seeing someone again that I hadn’t seen in a decade, hoping I could pull off one night of not being awkward and make small talk. Now, they’re shaky from the nerves of seeing someone I’d seen for months straight every day until I decided she didn’t fit into my rigid plan for an average, planned-to-a-tee life.

“Laine!” Her mother answers the door.

“Hi, Ms. Sterling. May I speak to Drew?” I twiddle my thumbs around each other by my waist, nervously anticipating what it would feel like to see her again. To speak to her again after everything.

The familiar scent of Drew flows out from her house and into mynose, instantly making me weak in the knees.

“Let me go get her. Come inside.” Ms. Sterling leaves the door open, but I don’t go in.

She walks over to the bottom of the stairs, leaning over the banister. Drew must not have told her anything that happened between us, because she doesn’t seem surprised to see me, and the way she calls for Drew sounds easy, instinctual even, like we’re having a normal hangout.

My ears are ringing from the pressure in my head, and my hands are still shaky as ever. Drew murmurs something that I can’t quite hear, and then Ms. Sterling turns to me, brows furrowed in what I can’t tell is confusion or anger.

“Well, it seems that she doesn’t want to see you.”

“If I could have just a few hours of her time, I’d like to show her something.”

“Look, Laine, I’m not sure what happened between you two, but if she doesn’t want to see you, I’m not going to make her.”

She grabs the front door and starts to close it, but I reach a hand out to stop her. Right now, I’m about to make the greatest decision of my life, or fall straight on my face.

Either way, at least I’ll know I tried.

“Ms. Sterling, your daughter is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” I start, my voice trembling. “Every day spent in her presence has been my best yet. She’s always teaching me new things about myself that I didn’t know I had in me, which is one of my favorite qualities of hers, and one of the reasons I was such an idiot to let her go so quickly. Hurting her was the last thing I wanted to do, and it’s my biggest regret, so please, let me see her.”

Ms. Sterling glares at me through her oval-shaped glasses, like she’s trying to read between the lines of what I’m saying, even though I’m truly giving it to her straight out.

I continue, voice shaky as ever. “We had such a whirlwindfriendship, and maybe that’s because God had other plans for us. Maybe Drew was the lesson I needed to learn. The person I needed to lose in order to appreciate, even if it’s too late. I don’t care if she never talks to me again after this. Honestly, it would be better if she didn’t because I don’t deserve her in my life. Just please, let me give us both the closure we need. Let me apologize for-”

The steps creak, and I look up to see Drew standing at the top of them. My heart skips a beat the moment I see her, and I'm instantly reminded of how she makes me feel. How much I missed her. How easy she is to love. How hard it was to feel like I lost her, even if just for a month, or depending on how this goes, possibly forever.

Drew’s hair is a rat’s nest, and she’s in a stained, horrendously blinding neon green shirt with bright purple sweatpants, a color combination that would make Ms. Bardot start convulsing at the sight of.

As an artist myself, the sight of it pains me. As the girl standing here, hopelessly in love with Drew and about to pour her whole heart and soul out in a desperate attempt to fix what she’d broken, I don’t care.

Drew could wear a skinned cow rug for a shirt with garbage bags for pants, and I would still think she’s the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

Drew looks just as disheveled as I usually am, and this time, the roles are reversed.