Haunted

Dear Levi,

12.31.13

I feel like a ghost, haunted by your abandonment, roaming this city mindlessly. It's the very last day of the year, and there is no point to it. The fear and panic in my chest is so strong I'm choking on it, petrified of saying goodbye to the year that holds the last time I can say I was yours. This new year... it has nothing. It will have no trace of you in my life. I hate it. I hate the thought. I don't want it. Tonight, so badly, I want to lie down and go to sleep and slip out with the ending of the year.
What are you doing? Will I ever know? Will it ever matter?
I wandered to Panera Bread, Westgate. I wanted to see him, one last time. I wanted to see Santana. Feel her cold metal against my body and grieve what I've lost. But I was afraid. So I went to Panera Bread to get hot chocolate first. Richard wasn't  there, but I wish he was. To give me a hug. To. feel something on this cold, empty life.
When I drove to Walmart, I saw Anna's ugly SUV but not Santana. It wasn't time for break... I was confused, worried. I hope it's running okay. It needs to take care of my prince. I'm counting on her to keep him warm and safe.
For some reason I walked inside. I dont't know why. I walked up and down, up and down, every single aisle in the store. All of them. Slowly. Mindlessly. Just looking, absorbing. Wanting to remember this store. I saw Brittany, flirting with some guy. I kept on. Some sweet young man in electronics tried smiling at me, but I couldn't muster a smile back. It was being kind to Levi at his Walmart job that softened his heart to me, and look how that turned out for me. I saw Amanda, and she downright glared at me. That hurt. But I didn't have the strength to care. I didn't see Tim. Didn't see Levi. Kept walking.
Back outside, out in the dark. No sign of Santana. Like it was all in my head.
My sad, broken head.
It was so cold. The cold that hurt. That cut so deep.
I drove to campus, parked in the darkness. Walked to the bench and grieved. There in the darkness, under the rattle of dead branches and the howl of dead wind, I cried and cried and cried. How could I say goodbye to this place? How could I move forward into nothingness?
I stayed for hours. Then I drove home, and wrapped myself in my blanket, and fell into slumber. Let the year end. I wouldn't watch it.  I didn't to feel the cold knife of inevitability drive into my chest. I just wanted to fall asleep.