behind the camera - fake dating sports romance (wlw)

Chapter Forty-Seven

HARPER

I don't really know where to start. It's late—maybe two, maybe three. The city's asleep, but I'm not. I'm sitting out on Millie's balcony with a blanket wrapped around me, rain soaking the air and the concrete and everything in between. It's cold, but I haven't moved. I think I like the cold. I should probably go back inside, but it's quiet out here. The kind of quiet that doesn't ask anything of me. The kind you liked. The kind I hated when I was younger and now crave like it's air.
She's asleep just behind the glass doors. My girl. Her face is buried in my pillow and she's drooling a little. You'd laugh. You'd say she looks like trouble, and you'd be right. But you'd love her. You already did, didn't you?

God, I hope so. I hope you knew. I hope you saw what I was too afraid to name yet, even as you were slipping away.

I miss you so much I can't breathe sometimes.

I didn't understand what missing someone really meant until I called you and you weren't there.
I miss saying 'Mom' out loud, knowing you'll answer with 'yes, sweetheart?'. I tried to remember your voice and couldn't. Just static. Just flashes. I hate myself for not recording it. I hate that I never thought I'd need to.

How do I live in a world where you don't exist in it anymore?

Everything feels wrong. I walk around in a life that still moves, but slower now. Numb around the edges. Like my whole body is underwater, but I'm expected to function like I'm dry. I'm scared of forgetting you.

It's only been a month, but every day since you left has felt like I'm learning how to walk again—with a limp. With half of me gone.

And maybe that's why I'm writing now. Because I can't capture this in a photo. I've tried. I've pointed my camera at sunsets and city streets and Millie's laugh, but none of it comes close to this hollow ache. This storm in my chest. There's no lens for grief. No shutter speed that can freeze a moment long enough to bring you back.
So I'm writing. Even though I don't write. Even though the words feel clumsy and crooked and not enough. Because I need you to know,

I'm in love.
And it hurts in a way that feels good. Like breaking open instead of breaking down. Like becoming someone I thought I wasn't allowed to be.

Millie is... she's everything. I don't know how else to say it. She's fire and ice and steadiness all in one. She's loud where I go quiet, brave where I shake, and she teases me like it's her second language. But when I fall apart, she knows how to hold the pieces without cutting herself. You would've seen that immediately. You always saw people for who they were underneath.

I think you saw her clearly, even when I couldn't. You called her my person before I did. You said she made me glow. I didn't believe it then, but I do now. I don't know how she did it, but she made room for me. For all my mess. All my noise. All the ways I am still learning how to stay in a life that feels safe. And she's still here.

I spent so long thinking I was too much. Too needy. Too sad. Too heavy to hold. I thought I'd have to make myself small just to be loved. I thought I'd have to earn it. Beg for it. Be grateful for scraps. But she never makes me feel like a burden. Never makes me feel like I need to apologize for existing.

She looks at me like I'm enough. She's the kind of love I thought people like me didn't get.
And it terrifies me. Because what if I lose her, too? What if I mess it up? What if I let myself want this—really want it—and it disappears?
Where are you now that I need answers? I wished I had asked more.

I wish more than anything that you were here to see it. To see me. Not just surviving. But learning how to live again. You'd love the life I'm building. It's not perfect—far from it—but it's mine. I cook now, badly. I sing in the car again. I laugh so hard sometimes I cry. And I cry so hard sometimes I can't breathe. But it's different now. Because someone holds me through it. Because someone stays.