Excerpt from chapter 23 'When I walked away'

“Some people don’t know what they have until it’s gone.” “But what about the ones who do know? The ones who never took a damn thing for granted? Who tried their hardest to hold on, yet could only look on helplessly while they lost the thing they loved the most. Isn’t it so much worse for them?” Yes, it is. Now, the things that hurt the most aren’t the things you would expect to hurt. It’s not waking up in the middle of the night to touch him and realizing he’s not there and shaking until my bones break. It’s not crying myself to sleep and drowning in my own tears because his voice won’t get out of my head. It’s not collapsing on the ground in shallow breaths and a head spilling over with memories of him because I’m being choked to death by his absence and how much I miss him. Those things hurt too, of course, but the things that really fucking kill are the little things. Like the list of things in my head that I can’t wait to tell him later but I know they will stay locked in my chest, piling up and never come tumbling out of my mouth like they used to. And it’s listening to one radio station the whole car ride without his fingers hitting all the buttons and the static between each station until he finds a song we can sing along to. He let me go. He left so much pain in my heart. He left the girl who loved him so damn much. I hope he’ll still be able to remember me every single day he wakes up. I know someday he’ll realize my worth and he’ll regret losing me. I was the girl who loved him more than herself, the girl who did everything for him, the girl who always stayed by his side and always understood him. He wasted the girl who fully accepted all of his flaws and imperfections. He wasted the girl who exerted so much effort in proving that she loved him, but he didn’t even appreciate it. He left her lonely.