Hurt People Hurt People

Chapter Thirty Nine:

Tears streaked down my face. I was shuddering violently, my fists clenched, my throat closed upon itself, noiseless moans leaving my lips.

I should calm down. There is no point reacting like this.

Blood still rose from my skin in perfect, shining beads of the brightest of reds. It was almost pretty.

I shouldn't have done that.

Did it matter, though? did it matter if, right this moment, I bled out and died, right here on my bedroom floor?

Oh stop it, for Christ's sake. Of course it did. Get up.

And so I stood shakily, clasping the side of my bed for support. Waves of nausea washed through my aching bones, chilling me until my teeth clattered noisily together.

It's August. Stop shivering.

Yes, it's August! August, the month for heat, summer, fun, love, friendship and laughter. The month to look nostalgically back on in later years. But look at me! what's there to look nostalgically on for me? besides the endless agony and wrenching feeling in my gut, what could there ever me? what's left for me? for years and years, I will never outrun this.  I will waste away my youth mourning just a few short months in my life that resulted in this wretched spiral of losses, this bitter, bitter heartache. Why wasn't Alex holding me now?

Pain so acute ripped through me that I had to sit on my bed doubled over, my whole body convulsing with sobs that I struggled to contain.

He hadn't said a word. He'd just run off and left me. 'Friends', indeed! how could you do that, abandon someone who you had once sworn to marry? to first say you no longer wanted them, then exile them completely? exile them to this, this dread of every moment, this unaccountable misery. If he could only see my now, just for a second. Would he cry? would he turn away? would he beg for forgiveness and plead for me to return to him?

Oh, how I wanted that.

But what would I say? "yes, I'll come back"? no! no, I couldn't, not after this. Not after he ripped out my heart and flung it to the floor, when he knew how much I was already down. I could never look him in the eyes again, as friends or anything different. I harboured too much resentment for that.

But I shouldn't resent him! poor boy, to have some crazed girl hate him all of his life because he decided she was too untameable for him. It was horrible for both of us-

Hate him? not hate him. Never that.

I could only ever be angry with him, nothing more.

******

I stared vacantly up at the ceiling, my eyes seeing it yet looking far past it. I had left the curtains open so that the moon lit everything dimly, its dull light mesmerising.  I wanted to get up and look at it properly, to remember every crater and contour in its form, but it was warm enough lying there, swaddled in blankets, that it nearly banished the cold I felt inside.

I wondered if Alex was still awake, whatever the time was. Was he in as stupified a state as I was?

No, he wouldn't be. Because he left me, so there was nothing for him to be sad about. He hadn't been abandoned by anyone. He was probably awake, yes, but without a tear in his eye, celebrating his newfound freedom. How could he view this separation as freedom? how could this torture for me be such liberation for him? my whole life had been built around our being together, and I had never wanted anything more, yet to him its release was a blessing.

I knew I would be fine though, really. One day I would have the idyllic life I had dreamt of. I again imagined my future, as I had done a thousand times before, the beautiful house, the summery scenes, the breathtaking daughter.

But it was no longer perfect.

Because the part that had made it so perfect was gone, and that life, with it. Those possibilities that had been possible, those unreal realities had been lost to me forever.  The only thing that I had left of them was the memory which had once been so honey-sweet to me, yet now was so bitterly sour. Nothing hurt more than what could have been.

And I didn't just lose my future and everything I had ever wanted with it. I had lost Alex, not the idea, the real thing, his pure, sweet soul. His lopsided smile, his contagious laugh, his eyes, so filled with love that my heart felt full just to look into them.

Now I could never look into them again. Feel his hands, cold and alien beneath mine, yet so, so familiar. Kiss his soft lips, listen intently to his exhilarating stories and be in awe of every word he said, wondering if I would ever fully know the workings inside his beautiful mind, fully understand what lay under his skin. He wasn't simply "my future", he was my best friend. He understood me, every inch of my shadowed heart, even the very darkest, hardest parts. He understood the bruised bits, where I hurt most, where I was most broken, and he didn't just avoid them. He nursed them and spent time healing me until I no longer thought of them. And who else could possibly do that? who else would dare brave the scorch of my words and the fortress of my thoughts just so he could get close enough to touch me? I was miraculously lucky enough to find that once. I could never find it again.

Buzz. Buzz.

I jolted upright, the blankets that I'd coveted falling off my shoulders with the motion. My heart hammered in my chest. My phone was alright, lying on the shelf by my bedside.

Oh god.

I snatched it up and read the newly appeared message on the screen.

Alex
Hey

That one word broke my heart all over again.

I let the accusations I'd raised against him fall away, remorse writhing like a living thing in my veins.

Oh god.

He did care, then, just a little, and he wanted to speak to me, to make sure I was alright. I wanted to know how he was, and Jarrett and Sophie, and did they all hate me now and what had they been up to. I'd waited too many weeks for this one word. . . He did care . . .

"We can still be friends."

He still wanted to!

Oh, I had my friend back. I didn't have to banish him from my life after all, I didn't really have to lose him. Oh, thank goodness. . .

"Will you still be friends?"

.
.
.

"No."

Arya's and mine's words rang in my ears as my fingers hovered over the keyboard.

No.

I stared hard at the word for a long time. I pictured him on the other end of the phone, doing precisely the same thing, seeing the 'read' notification appear beneath his message and wondering what I would say, and why it was taking me so long.

No.

Just one word. That was all it took. Moments away from saving our bond from the ashes - I could never have us back, but if I could just have a morsel of it, it would be enough.

No.

But of course, it would never be enough.

A single tear splashed onto the phone, blurring the text.

An instant later, the screen was dark again. I shoved it back upon the shelf, pulled the covers over my shoulders and rolled over.

I knew there and then the guilt would keep me awake all night.