if it hurts to breathe.

The past and future do not exist. I feel like I should tell you that right off the start.

The first time I knew she'd make all the difference in my life was when we were chasing lights down the fast lane.

I know I should start writing about these things in case I start to forget. Someone has to remember because I know in some ways I'll fail to do so.

It had only stopped raining then. She insisted to take the car roof down so she can throw her hands in the air to a song I've never heard before. People would not believe me when I say I still remember the exact things that happened that night. But I do. I still remember because she wasn't the type of person you just forget the moment you shut your eyes for the night.

But anyway, back to the road. I remember how she smelled of sweet rain and cigarette that it will make you wonder how such combination can be intoxicating and calming at the same time. She's smiling and it ruins me because I cannot put to words how much she means to me. I cannot scrawl enough words to tell her how I feel. She's a hurricane and I'm only a single speck of existence in a path that she's bound to destroy.

But she doesn't know that.

People destroy things without even knowing it. So I kept driving... drowning the world out to the sound of her heart.

I recall feeling like choking on thin November air, my words hitching at the back of my throat, desperate to claw their way out. I felt it in my bones that this night has to be the perfect moment. There's a red light coming and I didn't mind leaning to my side just to capture her lips- just to take her breath away like she does with me all the time. It's so easy. I've played the scenario over my head for the hundredth time. But I didn't make a move. I just stared at her, smiled and I felt it, heavy like a rock in my stomach.

She might have felt the same too. Probably thinking about the same thing at the moment with the way she's smiling back. Soft, pure and just beautiful. It's a game of poker. I know I have the right cards. A royal flush. Win and I get to take the queen home. But instead I sank down to my seat and didn't say anything out loud.

And now I regret it.

I regret doing nothing.

Because that time has passed. The memory only lives in my head now. She doesn't exist anymore. Gone like the burning embers of her cigarette. She'd only been gone for a week and the grass on her grave had started to grow. I realized then that the world would always keep moving forward. It doesn't stop for anybody. The future? It doesn't seem so much without her bright aura and amazing soul.

She's a variable I cannot control.

I'll keep writing things about her. Maybe it's my way of making things bearable, maybe not. It's the same thinking that lead people to believe in afterlife. No one can bear the idea of nothingness after our existence. There has to be something more, something bigger than all of us... something for her. Maybe by writing about her she'll slowly escape oblivion. People will know her story. They will keep on remembering her. It's the least I could do.

People and their memories and the sum of their parts cannot just disappear. She cannot just burn the way money burns.

I like to think ghosts exist. And if it really does then I have the ghost of who she once was.

an: i'm back :) been working on this short fic for a while. i hope you all like it. tell me what you think, love. if i don't say this enough, i appreciate you all for taking the time to even read my works :)