My Painless Addiction (#Wattys2017)

Chapter 9

I opened the door of my dingy apartment and sighed. I had to get rid of this stuff once and for all sometime soon.

The scene still replayed itself in my mind and though it wasn't her doing that troubled me. It was her doing that to him.

She had moved on but I knew that I hadn't.

It would take some time, to get used to the fact that she wasn't exactly going to be around anymore.

But my thoughts were proven to be false when I walked into a room of my stuff and on the bed sat Palestina, her back facing me.

She must have heard the door close and she turned to the source of sound when her eyes met mine.

I grimaced and braced myself for all the crying and heartbreak that I was now going to be put through.

I sighed and closed my eyes as I sat down on the bed.

"What are you doing here, Tina?" I asked, mentally reprimanding myself for even starting the conversation a second later.

This was exactly what I was scared of and didn't want. I didn't want her around me at all. I didn't want to talk to her at all. I didn't want her to answer me back and make me feel anything for her again. I didn't want to trust her again.

And I didn't want to love her again.

Within a fraction of a second, her eyes began to water and low sobs escaped her mouth.

No. Hell fucking no if she thought that I was going to stay in this room if she cried like that.

"I'm leaving right now." I mumbled to no one in particular and got up when she rushed forward to hold my hand.

"No! No! Don't leave! Please, Toni just listen to me just one more time! Please!"

Her hand on my arm was very disturbing. She still held my hand the way we used to. Her petite and small fingers, wrapping around two of mine, so much larger than hers any day.

I shook my head and replied, "I've been doing only that. And that was what got me in this state the first place."

She bit her lip and lowered her head as she attempted to control the sobs that arose from her throat as tears cascaded like a never ending stream on her face.

And to see her like that, clenched my heart which I thought was never possible anymore.

Without much thought or reluctance or any sort of self preservation, I let my hand rise to brush the few strands of hair on her face. Her locks felt worn through, almost like she hasn't run a brush through them in ages.

And just as my fingers prodded her chin up, I felt my heart tighten as she looked at me in surprise, her mouth falling open slightly at my gesture.

"Tina...." I trailed off and she swallowed nervously as I leaned forward and placed my forehead on hers.

This happened only when she was here. Not when she was with Rodney. Whenever I saw Rodney next to her, all I could see and sense was my anger. My anger towards her choice of Him over me.

If she had chosen someone who loved her more than I did, which I could never imagine happening, or if she had chosen someone who had a more stable future, if she had chosen someone who could treat her better than I could, I would have felt low but not furious at them.

I would have been frustrated on myself.

All the anger would be directed at my own person.

But then, the fact that she chose fucking Rodney, over all others, over me was the breaking limit.

That asshole didn't deserve that kind of love or that kind of care. I knew that I wasn't the king of the world to condemn him to torture but if I could, I would.

I could feel the heat coming off her body and my hands rested precariously on the sides of her face. I shut my eyes and let myself revel in the fact that I was touching her the way I used to before.

She kept crying. Her silent sobs, reverberating the space around us. Each time she gasped, I felt my heart painfully clench. And that was exactly when I realised.

It didn't matter when she was with Rodney.

It didn't matter that I felt betrayed.

It was just that both of us were just as heartbroken as the other.

I had decided that I would let myself feel anything for her anymore and that was true. But just this once.

It was a promise to myself that I had to break.

"Why did you do it?" I wished that my voice didn't sound so hollow, so defeated, so weak when I spoke to her.

She didn't look any different.

She sighed and replied, "I don't have an answer to that, Toni. I just don't."

It looked like she didn't want to talk about it more but she had to. "I was happy, Toni. I knew that I had your love and I did love you back."

She paused but before I could ask her again, she continued to say, "I just couldn't love you enough to not let go."

She didn't love me as much as I loved her. But I hadn't expected that to be the worst. I had been expecting the phrase that 'I had never been in love with you, and it will never happen'

I would admit that I was a difficult person to love.

But to think that she did love me was indeed a welcome satisfaction.

And with that, she broke down, her head collapsing on my chest. Her silent cries were deafening and I couldn't take it either.

I just stood there, my mind bank and my heartbeat echoing in my ears.

"But I did, didn't I? I loved you enough to not let you go. It was enough for the both of us." I choked out and she looked up.

"It was enough for me." I corrected myself and pulled away.

She shook her head and tried to respond to my statement but I continued talking, "I know that under the circumstances that we are at right now, this wouldn't be the best thing to say, but I had always loved you Tina. And maybe I always will be that person who was so clueless. But what I really want to say is, I get it. Maybe not the complete story, but I did get what you wanted."

I paused and stepped back, putting my hands into the pockets of my hoodie.

"I won't hold you against me. It was quite time that you got out of this before it became too toxic to you." My voice broke in all the wrong places as I swallowed the heartbreak and kept my eyes fixed on the floorboards.

"Or maybe toxic to me too." I muttered and looked up for a final glance at her features.

Just for one last time that I would look at her that way.

Her lips were curved upwards, in a watery smile as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her nose was red and her voice, sore like she had been crying nights together.

But what struck me like the first time she had, and the last time she ever would, were her eyes.

The green and blue with the light specs.

But what surprised me the most was the emotion of gratitude and understanding.

After a few moments, she walked out of my apartment.

And also out of my heart.