Excerpt: Far From Perfect

“What do you mean ‘we’re through’?” My heart is beating faster than ever, and it feels like it is going to explode in my chest. Tears of pain and sadness stain my face, but I do nothing to wipe them away. I just stare at Casey, unbelieving the words she had just said.
“I mean, I’m breaking up with you.” Casey’s voice cracked, and tears flooded down her face as well. She used the back of her hand to wipe them away. “I-I’m sorry, Mark, but…I can’t do this anymore.”
I turn my head, avoiding eye contact with her. Pain fills my chest, and I never thought it could hurt this much. “Is there someone else?”
“What? What do you mean?” Casey looks bewildered, but even out of the corner of my eye, I can see the fear set in her eyes. I know her like a book.
“Is there someone else?” It comes out angrier, loudier than I attended, but right now I don’t care. I turn my head to look at Casey, only to see her untying the shoelaces she always wear on her left arm. They are one of my favorite things about her – one of the many things I will never see, never feel, never know again. My heart tugs ever so painfully – no longer the masochistic pain I had come to know and love – but now a pain so powerful, so hurtful I can barely stand it, when Casey places the shoelaces in my hand.
“Take them, Mark, remember me.” Unconciously, I squeeze my fist around the shoelaces. No, I thought, this can not be the end. It can not be the end of us. “There is someone else.” Casey whispers in my ear, and the pain in my heart increases. I have to force myself to not cry, to not run away right there. I want to kiss her, I want to feel her, I want to love her. This is not what I intended. There can not be this much pain in the world, but I am feeling it, I am experiencing it, and I would not wish this on anyone in the world. “But she will never change the way I feel about you.”
The floodgates open, force themselves through, and I find myself taking her hand in mine, kissing it tenderly. “Don’t go,” I whisper between sobs of tears, “Please, Casey, I can’t live without you. Don’t go.”
“I’m sorry, Mark, but I have to do this…” Casey kisses me on the lips once, and I am crying more than I ever thought possible. Her hand slips free of my grasp and suddenly she is gone, gone from my world, never to return again.