Untitled- Final FINAL (3)

• novel-draft-CHARLESTON-ver8-bleaker.docx

• if_you_ever_hear_this.mp3

Chapter SEVENTEEN:
WHEN the Rain Smelled like her shampoo

It starts raining before he reaches the porch, which feels...scripted. The kind of rain that's softs and cold, like Charleston forgot how to be angry at him.
He stands there like a fool, hands deep in the pockets of his coat, inhaler pressing against his knuckles. The wooden steps creak beneath his weight—uninvited nostalgia.He doesn't knock.He doesn't even breath until he sees her.

^{rewrite this? too dramatic?? does it matter?? no one's reading it but me.}

She opens the door like she was expecting someone else. Anyone else. The moment she sees him, her expressions stutters—recognition, disbelief, then something he wishes was anger but knows is worse: caution."You shouldn't be here", she says."I know."
He shifts. Doesn't meet her eyes. "I just...I had to see if you're still real.""What do you want, Eli?"

Eli. Ethan's fictional stand-in, of course. He couldn't bear to name the character after himself. Eli sounds stronger, braver. The kind of man who doesn't leave without saying goodbye."Closure," Eli says, and then lies—
"No, that's not true. I want to say sorry. I want you to hate me less. I want to stop seeing your face when I close my eyes.."She folds her arms. Her sweater is too big; he remembers it used to be his. He wonders if she kept it because she forgot to throw it out or because she couldn't."You made that choice. You left. And I waited—until I stopped waiting. Don't come back now expecting anything clean."Eli nods. He doesn't argue. Because that's the thing about guilt.
It eats your voice first.

Chapter EIGHTEEN:
THE PLAYLIST HE NEVER DELETED

He walks home soaked. The rain presses into his chest like gravity.In his headphones, a playlist titled "ours, these is the feelings i feel when fall in love with you (lol ignore)" plays on loop.Song number 20 is still her song. He tells himself it shuffled by chance.He stops in front of the old church they used to sneak into. He doesn't go inside. Instead, he stands under its broken steeple, whispering apologies to God like He's still listening.And maybe she is, too.

If...loving her was the brightest part of his life, then leaving her was the darkest mercy he could give.

^{does this line suck?? or is it the only honest thing I've ever written?}

VN_UNSENT/voice_0009_finalmaybe.m4a(last edited 3:12AM. Charleston. Rainy night.)

🟢 [Recording Starts](soft inhale)
"I don't even know why I'm doing this. Maybe because I'm too much of a coward to say it out loud to your face. Or maybe because I need to hear myself say it...even if you never do."(faint rustling, maybe fabric—he's curled up somewhere small)"I think the worst part of everything is that you were the only thing that ever made me feel real. Like, before the hospital stays and the pills and the...prognosis bullshit, there was you. Laughing under my parents tree like we didn't just get yelled at. Calling me 'dumbass' for bringing soda instead of water to the hike. Crying from laughter because we watched that stupid horror movie and I screamed louder than you."(small exhale, kind of a laugh but broken)
"I still remember how you said my name. Like it wasn't a burden. Like...I wasn't a burden."

(silence for 5 seconds)"I told you I didn't feel the same anymore. That I stopped loving you. But that was a lie. God, it was the biggest lie I've ever told. And I've told doctors I'm fine when I could barely breathe. But lying to you...it was the only way I thought I could protect you. From this. From...me.(his breathing shifts—tight, unsteady)
"I didn't want you to stay just because you were kind. Or loyal. I didn't want your pity. I wanted you to be free. To find someone who could walk beside you without running out of breath."(slight hitch in voice)
"But now I don't know what hurts more. That you might've moved on...or that maybe you didn't. And I robbed you of closure. Of the truth. Of yelling at me, slapping me, anything. You deserved more than a disappearing act."

(pause, as if he's gripping the mic tighter)"If you hear this one day...I'm sorry. For leaving. For lying. For loving you too much to let you watch me fall apart."(faint background—ambulance siren)"I miss you every day I wake up and I'm still breathing. I know I shouldn't. But I do."(long pause)
"I shouldn't send this. I won't. Just needed to say it. To someone. Even if it's just to the dark."🔴 [Recording Ends]