Unpredictable • cth

44

"Why are you avoided the question?" I replied with yet another question, not a single prior one being answered.

"I'm not, Ella." He sounded defensive though the cracking in the voice signaled maybe vulnerability and hurt. "I'm caught off guard at 2am with the girl I love thinking I don't love her."

"So am I nothing to you?"

"Fuck no Ella, your everything to me." His voice sounding much sweeter and calmer than the pervious statement, my eyes falling as I finally realized what I was doing.

The line fell silent, the one mouse being heard is the shuffling around the house most likely for Mali since she simply can't sleep after finding me the way she did.

I had tumbled out of my bed, almost like I was fighting back again. I was pinned down by my own mind in both sense of the word. My body couldn't move as if I was having sleep paralysis but the only demon there was myself and my mind was racing only showing me the same scene over and over again until I broke.

Mali had her strong arms wrapped around me, rocking up back and forth, praying that I would calm down, that it was simply nothing. God how I wish it was nothing. She was trying so hard but normally my nightmares evoke massive amounts of tears, this time maybe one or two. She didn't know how to handle this, it was different than the normal and Mali didn't do good with different.

Even sitting on the floor upright, knees pulled into my chest as I rocked back and forth on the carpeted floors with my body harshly hitting the hard wood of my bed, I couldn't make myself feel better. I wanted to cry so badly, I genuinely thought that letting the tears rush our would help calm my nerves. But I knew better because my father always told me tears were superficial and they made issues worse, the more I cried the worse the nightmare would seem so I was doing my best to hold it together.

"Ella, where is this coming from?" Ryder finally broke the silence, his voice rasping and his breath thickening as he anticipated my answer.

"Why did you tell me so many times that day that I was nothing? That touching me and loving me was nothing?" I rasped out, somehow managing to keep the stutters and hiccups at bay.

"What day are you talking about?" He was utterly confused. Like I said we both had forgotten the incident, for the most part anyways.

Ryder hadn't acted up before or since that day so naturally we stopped any irrational thoughts regarding that day. Besides just a few weeks ago Ryder and I talked about why he choose Tiffany and why he left. We've talked about almost everything, but one insecurity leads to another and here snd I am calling Ryder over it.

"The day you broke my heart." I mumbled quietly, my eyes shutting forcefully at my choice of words.

I didn't have another way to describe the day. He broke me down just to have me back in his grasp. I was his whole heartily, probably will be my entire life. But there was no denying that he ruined my heart, that he broke it and crumbled it to dust, leaving me to pick up every last ash.

"Ella." He warned me, he knew that this was going to lead us down a hole. He never wanted to revisit this and he probably assumed that I hadn't either, which of course he would be right.

"Why did you think making me hate you would help? You know I could never stop loving you." I spat my words through the phone, my eyes still wired shut as the back of my head hit the edge of my bed frame.

"Because I'll never be good enough for you, Ella!" He shouted through the line, now his tone nothing less than exasperated. "No matter how hard I try to be, I never will be good enough for you."