here, I love everyone in the building. They’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real family. I want nothing more than to be with Mary and keep working here with all my friends. I want it so bad I might die.
I have to sever these relationships, though. I have to protect the people and the things I love. Sometimes, that involves removing yourself from the equation, no matter how much it hurts. I’m a disease, and they need to be rid of me before I infect everyone else.
Mary Patrick
Pastor Jeremiah walks up, and it takes everything I have to hold it together.
“Is Rick here?”
I don’t look up, shaking my head while dusting the pews. They look brand new because I’ve been over them three times, but it gives me something to do without having to look at anyone.
“That’s odd. He never misses a night. Place feels weird without him.”
“Mmhmm.” It’s the only sound I can make without bursting into tears. How I held it together the rest of the afternoon at work and until now is beyond me.
Pastor Jeremiah stands there for a moment, like he might say something else, then seems to take the hint and walks away.
I’m in the church right now, but my mind is a galaxy away. I knew Rick wouldn’t be here when I showed up, not after what happened. Part of me still hoped, though. I got my hopes up, that maybe he changed his mind about whatever this is he’s doing, and it crushed me the second I walked in the door and didn’t see his goofy smile. I expected to stroll in and see him pretending to be interested in whatever Pastor Jeremiah had him doing.
Why did he do this to me? He spent so long trying to win me over. Then he finally had me, and he just throws it all away? Something has to be going on with him. There’s just no other explanation.
There was a connection there. We both felt it. There’s no way I caused all this, and yet, that’s exactly how it feels. It feels like the world is over. I’m not even comfortable in my own skin right now, a different person. It’s like bugs crawl all over me, multiplying faster than I can brush them off. Four months ago, I didn’t know what my life looked like with someone else in it, couldn’t imagine it, and now I can’t live without him.
It hurts so bad, deep in my chest. An ache I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Not knowing the reason for it all just adds to the weight. If I had an explanation maybe I could move on, but I don’t. If he’s in trouble I want to be there. I want to shoulder some of it, so he doesn’t have to do it alone.
I glance up and a few other volunteers are walking around, and I notice they’re going out of their way to avoid me. Am I cursed? Do they think I have some kind of disease or something? I can’t live this way.
I need answers.
I’ve never left the church early in over a year, since I started volunteering, but I can’t live with this another second. Another second that feels like hours dragging by. What’s the worst that can happen? He already ripped my heart out and tossed it on the ground. I should have an opportunity to confront him on my own terms anyway. He planned it to happen the way he did because he knew I wouldn’t flip out at work. He knew I wouldn’t put our personal business out in the open.
He might pretend to be laid back and go with the flow, but Rick thinks everything through before he makes decisions. I know him better than anyone.
No. It’s not ending this way. If he wants it to be over it ends my way, not his.
And just like that, I walk out of the church without saying anything to anyone.
I wring my hands as I stomp toward his apartment building. The sun is just setting and throwing long shadows from the skyscrapers across the street. I replay everything I want to say to him over and over in my head, but as soon as I’m about twenty feet from the entrance, he walks right out the door.
Dang it. Of course he catches me off guard. Why wouldn’t he? Why can’t something work in my favor for once?
He takes the steps down to the sidewalk two