Days could pass, but as time would tell, they could never stay still. Even if I wanted to, the sun will march forward and back, the clouds will crawl across the sky with the lazy droll of the wind, and the moon will vanish and return with no one looking for it. Leaves will fall, snow will freeze the ground, and you will find yourself back in the rusty landing of the fire escape.

Back to me.

What was it that made you? I threw you away. I smoked your cigarette and inhaled your scalding scent the way you wanted me to. And yet, I still threw you away. Did it not make you feel like nothing? Have I not hurt you enough?

Why would you come back to the place you could be better without, to the person who could pull you apart more than build you up? I should not be the one to ask you this question though. Not when I do the same thing by going home. Every single day of my wretched life.

I would have asked you, but you beat me to the last step to the landing, ruffling my hair with your spindly fingers. If they grabbed me and never let go, would they crack my bones and snap my neck? It was a joy to wonder, but not when I looked at who you were.

"What are you writing?" you asked, as if you and I were not the strangers that we were. "I've been looking for you. You're not in Homeroom."

I could have rolled my eyes. Who needed to stay in a room full of barbarians when I could be alone in a world without? "I thought you're done with me forever," I said, wrenching away from your shadow while I tuck my notebook back into my bag. Your eyes could never be trusted, and who knew what you had seen on your way down. "I said mean things."

A laugh echoed from your throat. It was a sound I would have sold my soul just to hear again. An inappropriate thought, given how hard I tried pushing you away, but I would think it as long as I was able. But I would never tell you. Like you would never hear a lot of things from me.

"You're right, though," you replied, turning to me. Your knee knocked against mine on your way. "You don't need me, and you have every right to tell me to mind my own business. We all have secrets, times to spill them, and people to tell them too. I was just..."

You hoped. That you would be that person. Someone who took on the weight of the world even though you carried another. Someone who, for the belief you would experience paradise should you care for a poorer soul, would sacrifice the only person who should care about them.

I did not want to turn you into that person at my expense, and I wanted you to know that. So, I opened my mouth and turned you into one of the pages of my notebook. You broke down my walls, made sure to write your name on the rubble too. Instead of running away at the mess you have made, you smiled at me even as I explained why I did not want you to look at me and why you should never look at me.

Those monsters got what they wanted out of me. I recite their words to myself as I wake up and hear them again on my way to class. That was why classes were overrated. If I have to cross treacherous waters of my own doing just to get there, I would rather sit out here in the cold, in the heat, in the rain, and in shame.

And I told you because you asked. Because I could not twist the truth further. Not when you looked at me as if you truly wanted to know my secrets and you have nothing more to hide.

But you did. You are an enigma. A puzzle I could never solve with my hands tied behind my back. And even if I did not, you would have spun your own truth. You would have left me as you did now.

You would have broken me earlier. Gathered the shards of my being in your bleeding hands earlier. Became mine and I, yours, earlier.

Only time will tell how well I remember how your lips curved down as I pour onto you things I never should have. When my words finally failed me, you put your hand on my knee and whispered. Fucking whispered: "But you're beautiful."

As if those three words would fix everything. As if they were enough to keep the world spinning and the seasons changing.

Time would pass, and I would not remember how I laughed at your claims, called you insane, and urged you to have your eyes checked. I would not remember how you stilled my aching heart and frantic breaths when you ran your thumb against my cheek. But I remember your smell—that intoxicating scent of cigarette smoke mixed with cheap booze and stale bath soap, as if you did your best masking your sins for another day at church—and how it caressed my skin when you drew closer.

And closer. Enough to tell me, "You'll always be beautiful to me."

I remember the way our lips touched, the river of warmth and strange tastes you dumped into my mouth. The way your knee dug between my legs and the dull pain on my shoulders as I crashed against the railings—I remember. How could I forget? You and I—we were never meant to be this perfect. We never meant to be anything more than two dying stars losing their shine. What we were, as we collided, would be a void. Something that would devour the hurt, the blood, and the sins of the past. Something to make us forget how cruel the world could be.

Something that would tell me the secrets of the universe without a word.

Like the fool that I am, I will believe them. Even if they become a new kind of hell in the long run, even if they prove to be lies upon lies because you are a liar. You have always been a liar.

We are galaxies of rust waiting to implode and never come back, and for that, I will believe you.