You didn’t want to leave.

You didn’t want to cry, or laugh, or do much of anything. You wanted to lie on the concrete and stare up at the stars that were burning so bright they reflected the green in your eyes.You wanted to swallow your pride, and maybe even his, just for the night.

You didn’t want to listen to your mother. You didn’t want to take into consideration that she’s had 30 more years of life then you have, which makes her 30 years wiser. You didn’t want to clean your room like she said you should, and you didn’t want to empty the drawer of his stuff below your mom’s vanity. You didn’t want to believe her that things were going to get better.

You didn’t want to dance around your friends’ questions like girls do when they want you to ask more. You didn’t want to tell people, and have them feel bad for you. You didn’t want to have to come to school and see the puffy faces of people who say they’re your friends, but never met him.

You wanted to hold yourself together, but you’re falling apart. You wanted to cook your grandmother’s lasagna and laugh and dance to Phil Collins in the kitchen with your dad. You wanted to help him wash his white pickup, and scrub the red mud off his tires from his hours of hard work.

You wanted to run up to him and hug him when he walked in the door, and ask him how his day was, even though you know you’ll get the long-winded spiel of how he had to do someone else’s work because they couldn’t do it right.

You know you act just like him.

You wanted to help your sister with the dishes and blow bubbles that would settle in her head of blonde curls, and you wanted them to believe you were okay, even though you really weren’t. You wanted to see him kiss your mom and smile at her and say “I love you” more times than you could count, and hear him say after dinner, “I’m full as a tick,” just to see your mom’s disgusted face afterwards. You wanted to see them act like they always have since you were old enough to pay attention to them.
You wanted to say “Get a room!” when he kissed her goodnight. You wanted to hear him laugh and say, “We have one.”

You wanted to take an hour and a half bubble bath without anyone questioning if you were alive. And secretly, you kind of wished you weren’t. But you didn’t do anything about it.

You wanted to use the age-old excuse, “Oh, I’m tired.” You didn’t want to explain that you’d been up for 72 hours playing and replaying the end scene of your dream last night where he cries as he’s flying through the windshield that he loves you.

You want to remember how it felt when he hugged you.

You wanted to hear “You're grounded!” and you wanted to hear him pacing up the stairs, knocking on your door, and saying “I’m sorry I made you upset.” You wanted to tell him it was your fault, one more time.

You wanted to tell him thank you for all the times he woke you up instead of making you use an alarm clock, and for all the times he put your Pop-Tart in the toaster so you wouldn’t have to do it. And you wanted to tell him thank you for listening to you cry over boys and taking you on dinner and movie dates so you could get over them… and understanding that you never really would.

You wanted to laugh at pictures from when you used to dress up like Cinderella, to have him squeeze your shoulder with his hands like sandpaper.