Resolution

25. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

"It's not a silly little moment, it's not the storm before the calm. This is the deep and dying breath of this love that we've been working on."

Song: Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

Artist: SoMo (John Mayer cover)

Fury seared through my veins as I watched his head duck to her ear, his perfect lips whispering things I couldn't hear. Never in my life had I felt a more devastating combination of irate anger and crushing pain all at once. My mind seemed to be crawling with poison that leeched into my every cell as I tried to comprehend how exactly I had wound up in this situation.

It was supposed to be me he held and whispered things to. It was supposed to be me he smiled at and was unable to tear his gaze from. It was supposed to be me that he ended up with at the end of the night. It was supposed to be me that he claimed to feel something for, that he wanted to try with, yet his every action provided evidence to the contrary.

My mind felt like it was about to implode as I tried to come up with any possible explanation for his actions. The only one he had hinted at was that he was upset that I hadn't told my friends about him, but if that was his only reason, he was way out of line. That was much too small of an offense to constitute him hitting on my friend right in front of me. There was absolutely nothing I had done to deserve such a retaliation from him. Worse, he was being a hypocrite, because I was nearly positive he hadn't told a single person about me.

It took everything in me not to punch him across his beautiful jaw and tackle Olivia for good measure. The betrayal I felt from him was more devastating than I remembered Ben's feeling, which was saying a lot. I had barely started this thing with Harry, but I was already more hurt by him than I had been of my boyfriend of three years. How I had managed so far not to burst into tears and run away was beyond me, because all I felt like doing was curl into a ball in the corner.

It felt like bits of my heart were breaking off as I watched his hand fall to her hip, his long fingers curling across the curve of it. Despite my greatest efforts, there was nothing I could do to tear my gaze from them even though it was making my physically ill to watch. I couldn't handle the way his eyes focused on her when she spoke and the way she trailed her hand down the tattoo covered skin of his arm. Pain bubbled viciously in my stomach and I could feel my throat tightening as the tears I'd somehow managed to hold off threatened to spill over.

I hadn't realized I was physically shaking until a hand landed on my arm, the gentle grip tightening to try and get my attention. The searing agony I was feeling was too strong to respond to the touch, the masochist in me drinking in every single detail that was chipping away at my sanity.

I could feel everything we had worked so hard to build up crumbling by the passing second, the shattered remnants of it crashing to the floor at my feet while he couldn't even be bothered to look at me. What was left of my heart slipped from my chest, joining the shredded remains of our relationship that hadn't had the chance to start on the floor.

"Halle, come on, please come with me," Maggie begged in my ear, tugging at my arm as she tried to break me from my trance. I was frozen in place, mesmerized and haunted by the way he touched her and the way she leaned into him, the space between them shrinking by the second.

"Please Halle," Maggie repeated, her touch on my arm growing more urgent as she desperately tried to tear me away from the torture in front of my eyes. Her face moved into my line of vision, concern and anger spelled out in her expression as I blinked, my eyes trying to focus on the new sight.

"Let's get out of here," she said, placing her hands on my shoulders and steering me away from Harry and Olivia. My feet followed numbly, acting of their own accord because my mind was too far gone to control anything. I felt cold inside, like all the heat had been stolen from my body and had been left scorched into the floor where I had stood. Maggie didn't say anything until she had pulled me through the basement, up the stairs, and out the back door of the party. She continued to pull me along until she had pulled us to a little cluster of trees that was deserted and quiet enough to hear the ragged breathing ripping from my chest.