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Crack. ‘I can’t breathe, I can't’ I looked up at him, nothing on my face. It’s unfair of me to burden him with feelings I knew could never be reciprocated. A bitter taste filled my mouth as bile rose in the back of my throat. A dream this sweet could only end in regret as the reality set in, cold and cruel – comforting in its own way, but cruel nonetheless.
If it was a gentle night, clear and calm with flickering stars scattered across the heavens then perhaps I might feel better. If the night was a raging catastrophe of storms, weeping into the sodden earth, crying winds shouting into my ears then perhaps I might feel better. Were the sea nearby perhaps I could drown my sorrows into the endless abyss, nobody would see me crying if I was underwater right? If the night felt the turmoil in my chest, if it reflected any of it or even attempted to soothe me then maybe, just maybe I would feel better
Yet the night was dull. Heavy cloud cover, not a star to be found. The breeze is stiller than a carved marble monument and the sea nowhere in sight. First time unlucky, maybe second time I’d learn. Third time…is it not meant to be the charm? “Hit me, yell, say something. It was my fault I know, I misled you…” that gentle voice, oh I loved it even as my lungs burned, unable to breathe. Crack. I can’t move, despite the way my body trembled, my hands shaking as I looked away, those deep brown eyes I so loved, so soft and endearing – nothing in the world could compare.
“I’m not going to hit you, it's not your fault. I will never hate you, because it’s not your fault. I knew this was going to happen, I’m sorry, I just didn’t want this dream to end” fuck it hurts, I feel like that old vase in some grandmothers house thats been glued together a thousand times, each time another little piece lost. It's still together but god its ugly and so misshapen, it lives by itself in a forgotten corner of the house because nobody can stand to look at it, mismatching everything around, it's just a curiosity with some funny stories to tell. Everyone asks about it, some even claim they love it for all the memories it has but at the end of the day, it still lives in that corner, dusty and unwanted, held together with glue and sticky tape.
My eyes stung in the night air, I prayed – oh god I prayed that he couldn’t see as tears threatened to spill and my cheeks flushed an angry red. Rough hands reached towards me ever so softly, to hold me, to caress me in ways ‘just friends’ can never have. Time unfroze just long enough for me to step back. My movements were sharp and jerky, my hand recoiling like I'd just been stung by a bee. “I can’t hate you but god please, please you can’t let me love you” those wistful eyes, holding onto my every word as if he knew I wasn’t saying them all, if only he could peer deep into my soul and just…feel how I felt, hear the words I longed to say ‘how cruel the world is, how cruel this man is’ there was nothing I could escape and nothing to shelter me from this pain, for I knew how this would end and I chose to hope, a naive wish that perhaps it would not end the way it has each and every time before.
“When did you know…” a silence fell between my words, I wouldn’t be able to say it right no matter which god fed me words “When did you know you’d fucked me over” there it was, the subtle recoil of his body from where he stood, the flinch in his expression that told me he knew exactly how guilty he was – and why.
“After we…” his gaze fell to the ground. After he’d fucked me, he knew that long ago, on a night precious to me. ‘I’m a fool, an absolute idiot’ he knew the morals he’d coaxed me into compromising. Nothing in the world will ever hold such permanence as your own morals, the rules you live by and the dreams you chase and now, now I’d compromised so many of them for a man who knew he was leading me on.
The clouds parted, as if sensing the clarity settling in my head. Though my hands still trembled and my heart would forever ache, the moonlight embraced me and not a tear was to be seen, my eyes devoid of anything he could latch on to. “Why” soft as the breeze now beginning to blow, the crickets fell silent hoping he had heard me “Do you hate me so much that you looked into my eyes and decided I should hold onto this until the sun no longer rises and darkness swallows us all?”
“I knew I’d messed up the second we did it, I didn’t want to make you upset or ruin our friendship so I let it go on” …let it…go on?
“I see” well…not anymore, those tears I was hiding so well glistened in the moonlight, the whole world blurred as the composure I’d fought so hard to keep crumbled under the crushing weight of realisation.
“No, that's not-” his voice cracked and I couldn’t flinch fast enough as his hand grasped at mine, managing to latch onto my wrist “You did nothing wrong, you can’t hate yourself for something that was my fault”
I can’t? I think I can. Your fault? It’s mine. These hands have shed no blood, no, they’ve never even seen it but still I beg, I beg and I beg for you to save me. To save me from a monster you can’t see, a monster even I can’t see but oh I know its there, I can feel it breathing down my neck, those hands on my throat – sometimes you need to look with your heart, not just your hands. Crack. I could feel little pieces of my heart falling away, like those pieces of the vase that disappear with every break. Though in time I might pick myself up and laugh loudly and feel the spring breeze deep in my chest, maybe I’ll feel love from the bottom of my heart and I’ll run through fields calling someone else's name, I am never going to recover the shards lost beneath the cabinet, swept under the lounge, tossed away by avoidant hands.
“It’s not your fault. It can’t be, not when I should’ve learnt my lesson the first time. I never learn from my mistakes” that was cruel, I shouldn’t call him a mistake…loving him was never a mistake – believing in him was.
Perhaps I said it to see the same look in his eyes as the one in mine, maybe some part of me deep down was enjoying it; if only that part would come to the surface, tears only ran rivers quicker, my sleeves soon soaking as I desperately tried to rein in my emotions. “It really was my fault this time though…don’t blame yourself” avoidance. He didn't want to confront my feelings either, and who would when everything was as messy as now.
Why, why won’t he let me hate myself for my own naive stupidity. It was my fault, mine and I didn’t deserve consolation for stupidity else I risk making the same mistake over and over again. That is how we got to this point, is it not? I have to move on…the past must either go behind me, or disappear entirely “I’ll give your hoodie back tomorrow” for the past to move behind me, I have to step forward. If I want it to disappear…though it hurts, I must let go of the things I hold dear.
“Oh…okay”
‘Why does he sound hurt…what right does he have to hurt’ I’ve never seen those eyes outside my mirror…why, god fucking why does he get to look at me with those sweet, sweet eyes…why am I watching his heart break. Are you sad we’re changing? Do you really believe it's your fault…insist until your throat gives out but why is that sadness so…visible…why do you look so vulnerable.
I know I’m not your type, I’ve always known this…so why do you let me believe I could ever be anything more to you. This time, was my hope a little higher because you came to me? Why would you indulge my sweet dream if you're just going to tear everything away the second those blue eyes looked in your direction. I think I’d rather be numb to the world than experience this over and over, and over and over, and over. Oh the things I would sacrifice, the things I would change…my love I would have done anything, given you everything – you just had to let me.
“I’ll give your hoodie back tomorrow” Why did I feel that in my heart…that look in her eyes, I didn’t mean for this to happen, why did it have to happen this way.
“Oh…okay” no, that came out wrong I don't mean it like that…maybe I do but it’s not fair for me to be hurt, I don’t have the right to be hurt when I did this; being the cause of her misery, I don’t think I ever want to feel this again. But I can’t take it back because it could never work. I can't see us together…no matter how hard I try to change my outlook, I just don’t see it working.
“Was it you, or was it me?” It was like watching myself in the mirror as I dragged my gaze back up to his eyes. “Whose personality can't you see working…” I didn’t need to hear his answer, I know it's mine. I’m a lot as a person and I know it, I just…’fuck I don’t have the right words for this and I probably never will’. I don’t know, I just wish this ended violently, anything but this mournful peace…the silence between us that no words will ever fill. Sometimes we need to bleed to know we are alive, sometimes we must cry to understand we are only mortal. Our cuts bleed and our scars don’t fade, eternal reminders of who we have faced and what we have become.
The air felt colder now, the finality sinking in. “We can still stay friends” we can still stay friends…can we? For whom are you begging this to last, for me? No, I can’t believe your heart would be so cruel. You want to keep every part of me possible but still you can’t see those little scars every time you tell me ‘we can’t be’ hammers on my ears when those words fall from your lips. Once, twice, a third time and I still didn’t learn, perhaps this time I will learn not to love you – I will learn to leave you.