There was a part of me that wished he wouldn't look at me that way. You know, with brown eyes that showed everything he was feeling-good things like love and adoration and that I was his whole world. A broad smile on his face-a face I'd once thought sexy as fuck with its strong jaw, Roman nose and a chin with a dimple just off centre. Still did, although his looks were tainted now, a mask he was hiding his real feelings behind. I'd found that out in one of the most shocking ways.
Eavesdropping. Never bodes well.
"We're not working, Christopher," I said quickly, sitting forward on the sofa, wanting the words out of my mouth so I didn't have a chance to convince myself I shouldn't say them. I'd done that too many times already, holding off, thinking that things would change by themselves. That fate would deal with it all so I wouldn't have to.
Breaks like that didn't happen, though, did they? Not to me.
He stared at me from the chair opposite, mouth slightly open, his eyes wide and watering, eyebrows raised. I couldn't deal with tears-didn't want to deal with them because then it would mean I'd hurt him. I'd crushed him like his words had crushed me. I wasn't stupid, I'd known my words would wound, knew I'd have the aftermath to deal with. Devastation. The why, why, why? The what-can-I-do-to-make-it-better scenario-then again, from what I'd heard he wanted this, so he shouldn't be too fussed about it. I was doing what he didn't have the balls to do.
Was I selfish in needing him to just accept it, so I could fuck off into the sunset and try to mend the broken shit inside me?
How had I ever thought things were fine when they weren't?
I'd have to open up, try to tell him how I felt, what he'd made me feel. That yes, although I loved him it wasn't enough. That I had to be in love with him at the same time in order for it to work. And I wasn't. In love with him, I mean. I just fucking wasn't. Not anymore. A fortnight ago my world had been an amazing place to be, yet now... Now everything had been turned upside down.
While he continued to stare, mouth working, no wails or words coming out, I tried to think about when things had changed. About when being in love had morphed into feeling trapped, the need to run away so strong it had confused me. I'd had a chance to examine how I'd felt the past couple of weeks, to know that just loving him wasn't adequate-I needed to forgive him if he still wanted to be together, and I wasn't sure I could. This, me saying what I had, was all news to him, a bolt from the blue. Words he'd told me he'd never wanted to hear coming from me. Words I'd once thought I'd never say. You did that, didn't you, because you meant it at the time, really believed in what you said? Yet I'd spoken them and I couldn't take them back. I hadn't meant them, but he wouldn't know that. They were floating between us, a dark cloud of boiling hurt, and the sunshine wouldn't be arriving any time soon, or a gentle breeze, to make them go away.
"What?" he managed.
His voice had cracked mid-word, and a tear trickled down his cheek. He wasn't prone to tears, had always held them back before, so the sight of that tear told me I'd cut him deep. He didn't bother to dash it away, and it was as though all the energy had been sucked out of him, that just making that one movement would have been too much. He shifted forward to sit on the edge of his seat, too, then folded in on himself, a body without bones.
I felt for him, I really did, but the need to escape, to turn my back on him and just...leave was more overwhelming. I was a bastard for wanting that, but self-preservation urged me on. I should have wanted to sit down and discuss it, to ask him what was going on-what had been going on behind my back-tell him that it wasn't him, it was me if I had to, and wasn't that the ultimate, lazy-arsed way of doing things? But in this case it wasn't true. It wasn't me. I'd done nothing but love him, support him, and there he'd been, throwing it all back in my face and expecting me to take it, to accept it without a murmur of complaint when he deigned to let me know how he really felt.
Yet I couldn't call myself an arsehole for ending it because I didn't feel like one-couldn't even begin to express how I felt because I didn't fucking know all the ins and outs of it myself. I just knew I had to get away from him. Get away from...this.
'This' was a relationship, one that had quickly gone from burgeoning friendship to lust, to the giddy heights of passion-fuelled nights where the thought of being without him had sent me into panic mode and I'd made myself frightened at the idea of him not being there. I suppose you could say I was a coward, not facing things, but shit, wasn't that a natural thing, to want to run? Didn't everyone in my situation wish they could just drop the bomb then dive for cover? Was that why he hadn't broached this subject himself before now?
"We're not working," I said again, the words burning, more bitter than last time.
Another tear followed the first one down his face and anchored on his stubbled jawline. Hung there for a bit then dropped off onto the hem of his red T-shirt. It made a ragged circle and reminded me of a splat of rain on a sun-baked pavement. A storm was on its way, a torrential downpour that would leave me soaked, seeking shelter, running from the thunder, from lightning that had a mind to strike me down if only I'd keep still long enough for it to hit me. Was I prepared to sit still? To let him rage until he was spent?
Would he even rage?
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