“Seldom does man know the value of a treasure until it’s long since slipped through his fingers.”
It was laughable, really, the way Tumblr thought she actually understood the magnitude of grief that weighed down on those words. To think that nearly two decades of fighting on the frontlines, fighting for her principles, fighting to prove she deserved to take up place in this world… to think that all the scars on her body thick enough to form an unbreakable shield… to think it would all crumble so easily.
She’d awoken to a barrage of messages from Reddit. A dozen missed calls. All telling her, warning her, not to look at the news. She should have known. She should have listened. But it had been a chapter of her life she’d finally gotten over, finally forgotten… right? It couldn’t possibly hurt her. It couldn’t possibly mean anything to her now, whatever it had to do with that person.
And so, she’d steeled her nerves and looked, only for the scarred tissues of her healing to be ripped open, bloody stitches snapping helplessly as the scarlet blood ebbed and flowed, leaving her feeling so raw.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
Not like this.
Never like this.
She sank to the floor, the dull thud of her phone falling echoing through the caverns of her mind.
4chan was… gone.
4chan… she’d never stood a chance. They’d gone straight for her heart, tearing through her defences because someone had leaked the security plans of her house. She’d been caught off guard, and they’d… they’d viciously, ruthlessly, and relentlessly torn her to shreds. By the time the officials had arrived… there hadn’t been anything left to save.
Nothing left to save.
Tumblr… she wasn’t supposed to feel this way. She was supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be overjoyed! The feud they’d had, and all the horrible ways 4chan had hurt her, subjecting her to such disgusting and horrifying things, ridiculing her beliefs and the things she’d loved, putting her down constantly and being a terrible, terrible person overall, and…! And the way she’d been taunted, told to unalive herself, and making a competition to see who would die first…
She was supposed to be happy.
She won, after all.
Just like that, as if those words were the key to it all, her numbness shattered, and in its place bloomed something worse. It was sharp, searing, and ruthless, and at the centre of that explosion was her own heart. The agony, the gut-wrenching pain that wrecked through her in waves left her curling into herself, raking her hands through her hair and just pulling and pulling and pulling—
She screamed.
She screamed until she choked on her own pain, until the anguish soon dissolving into gasps and sobs, until she could no longer tell if the screams were ever leaving her mouth or if they were reverberating within the confines of her head.
All she’d ever wanted was an apology.
All she’d ever wanted was an acknowledgement of the solidarity they shared, being the unpopular, weird kids wherever they went. She’d spent so many endless nights despairing over what she could have done to prevent the dilapidation of their… their bond. They could have had it all, but they’d ended up with naught but the ashes of the home they’d once built together. Razed to the ground because 4chan no longer wanted to associate with Tumblr. Scorched past recognition because 4chan had changed once she’d met new people and gotten more popular.
Even with those miserable ash-stained hands, she couldn’t quite move on from what they had.
She’d been ready to forgive everything too… until 4chan took it too far and insulted her principles. The attacks had been vicious and malevolent, with every intention to hurt, and even though Tumblr had managed to defend herself… she’d had enough.
…at least that’s what she’d told herself.
But now, looking back on it… it all felt so pointless. She’d been too stubborn. The fight had been so long ago that it had collected dust, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to look 4chan in the eye again. She’d made up her mind to forgive her old love if and only if she was given the apology she deserved. All it would take was a simple ‘sorry’ and she would have caved like the last remnants of autumn clinging to the branches of a tree too withered. She would have happily fallen to the ground to disintegrate into the winter, if only she could exist within the familiarity of that embrace once again. She would have stayed despite it all, at the price of one single word.
And now she could never get that apology no matter what she tried or how much she waited.
Were you thinking about me when they came for you? Or did you really not care at all? Would you have apologized had I just approached you, or am I the only one left clinging to the meagre remnants of our old flame? Did you still love me when you bled out or did you curse me for not being there with you?
Oh, 4chan. Oh, my dear 4chan. What have they done to you? What have I done to you? Forgive me, love, for I’d been too adamant. Oh, 4chan, won’t you come back for me?
Just once, so I can kiss you goodbye?
But no amount of remorse, no amount of guilt, and no amount of prayers would ever bring her back. Not the stranger she’d lost, not the hurtful person she’d changed into, and most certainly not the 4chan she’d once known and loved and embraced under a sky full of shooting stars. Tumblr could be willing to sacrifice all she had, but there was no price she could pay to change what had already been done.
In a fleeting moment, it had all disappeared.
Slipping through her fingers… never to return to her. And all she was left with was a broken heart that would never heal—not that she’d ever want it to, for this misery was all she had left of the one she’d loved.
If this is what victory entailed, then she’d rather not have won at all.
