It's been one week since they started dating.

It's been one week since the one person I thought cared about me showed their true colors.

It's been one week since I realized I'm truly and completely alone.

***

I spend the next few days under the covers, apathetic to the world while Gray parades his new girlfriend all around town. She seems happy. Worst of all, so does he.

Could I have mistaken Gray's kindness for flirting?

It seems impossible. There was something more than mere friendship brewing between us. I noticed it in the way his emerald eyes sparkled with passion when he glanced at me, or how he made me feel spectacular behind a camera lens. I refuse to believe that he didn't feel the way I felt for him; the way I still feel for him. Our connection was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Gray can't deny that.

Watching them walk hand-in-hand outside Gray's house sickens me. Naomi laughs at every joke Gray relays, her wavy black locks swaying back and forth in the chill August breeze. She's gorgeous enough to model a bedazzled scarlet gown on a fashion runway someday. It's no wonder every straight guy's head turns whenever she walks into a room. Nobody can resist her radiant beauty and magnetic charm. Including Gray.

Watching Gray kiss Naomi makes my heart ache as if the world's sharpest knife has pierced through my skin and dug in-between my bones. Every time Gray pulls back, Naomi pulls him back in, and the knife lodges deeper and deeper until I'm left to bleed out. I wish my hands were the ones intertwined with Gray's. Imagining his lips on mine is like pulling out the knife before swiftly sticking it back in, forming fresh stinging wounds with every subsequent jab.

I could eradicate the pain by drawing the window curtains. Yet I struggle to look away from their advances, wishing it was me beside Gray instead of her.

I miss the conversations we shared. Gray always knew what to say, and hearing his sweet reassurance made a monumental difference because sometimes it seems impossible to envision a world where my agony ceases to exist.

Suddenly, amidst the depths of my agony, an idea forms. Hope blooms within my chest, soaring through my body like a gentle sunrise into the sky. It warms me to the sense of opportunity that comes with the dawning of a new day.

This'll be my last attempt to change things. The last time I open myself up to another. I'll pour it all out on the page, expressing my intimate thoughts with an unfiltered vulnerability too difficult to voice out loud. And, hopefully, Gray will accept my declaration.

I can only hope.