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A year of fighting against myself to get away from here. A year of finding how easily it was to be ruined by love because of how strong it is and how much it reminded you of what was missing before.

A year of loneliness around people who tried to make me less lonelier.

A year with Blue and a year of grief.

Looking at the sky feels different now.

Damien is sleeping inside, he’s probably thinking about how to rearrange our new life. I’ve been assigned to Virginia’s bureau, the same office as him. How do I tell him that even with all of this, pain is still eating me alive.

How do you tell someone you love that you don’t think you’ll live long enough to let him love you back?

Am I selfish for being tired enough to want to let go?

I thought, maybe if I found another way to numb the pain, life would feel more tolerable. But it didn’t.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with nothingness, I feel it encasing my head, my thoughts, it pushes through my heart and makes it difficult to breathe. This hole in my chest, this voice saying that I’m too far gone, is exhausting.

For a long time, I thought this was what life was supposed to feel like. But depression can feel like you’re still trapped under the rain while everyone else around you talks about sunshine.

No matter how many times Damien repeats that I’m not alone, I can’t accept it. It’s like I can see the end, and my loved ones are holding my hand as we walk there together.

Even drawing doesn’t feel like an escape anymore.

I keep going back to the day dad found one of the drawings I made after mom’s passing. The cliffs. Her standing there. And he burned it.

After hearing him constantly tell me how useless this was, how it would get me nowhere to draw like a lunatic, my brain ended up associating creation with suffering.

That’s why it’s difficult to finish any of them now. The notes are just as messy. It was supposed to help me and even that, he stole it from me.

Art should not be perfect, it should just happen.

Damien’s voice reaches me as the thought slowly dissolves.

Another star is done. I’ve made one for each time my mind itched to hurt myself again.

I miss it. The pain of losing it all. How can I explain that to him? To anyone. I can’t even understand it myself.

The sketchbook is now almost finished after a year of trying. Two hands reaching to each other.

Maybe if I wasn’t born wrong I would’ve been able to give him what he deserves. A pure love. Not afraid to see me drown every time my mind breaks.

If I wasn’t born wrong, I would’ve kissed him the moment I understood he wasn’t there to leave no matter how hard I tried to push him away.

The two hands are finally touching on the page.

And my head wanders as my pen writes next to these two souls trying their hardest to love each other without dying.

Play - How Deep Is Your Love - Live by Remorse, Deprezz, Xizt

Morning finds me on the rooftop a few hours later. I hear the door open behind me and I close the sketchbook quickly before turning. He’s there, standing with a large canvas tucked beneath one arm and a box of paints in the other.

“Last chance to finish your drawing before we leave,” he says.

I look at the canvas, then at him and smile. “You brought all that up here?”

“One morning left, Mireya,” he replies.

He sits down behind me, his chest settling against my back for a second, then turns me back toward him.