Begin Again

Chapter I. Knives

It had started as a normal day.

I had my coffee. I woke up late, as it seemed like he woke up before me. It wasn't something out of the ordinary, but I had a hunch he never even came last night. The bed beside me was untouched.

Work was productive as usual, and I had met up with a couple of friends to catch up a bit since I had been so busy the past few months. What with moving in with Harry and the promotion at work, I didn't have much time for myself. I had a good time with them, until I had to head home after getting a certain suspicious text, and I passed by an old place I used to go to with him at the beginning. I thought why not just take a look through the glass in the restaurant, I missed the place and those easy times.

I wish I hadn't. I really wish I hadn't. I could have went home and stayed oblivious, watched my favourite show and waited until he got home from his "extra" shifts.

Instead I watched the show before me, and all the late nights and rare meetings unravel as I watch the underlying truth before me. I was frozen at first, my body suddenly shaking, and I knew it wasn't from the cold weather. I didn't know what to do, I don't know what to do. I just watch him holding her hand as she's sat in front of him in a revealing dress and caked up face. He's dressed up too, wearing a black button up and the coat I bought for him for Christmas lay on the back of his chair. I can feel my lungs slowly lose the ability to breathe, and all I can do is gasp as she leaned across the table, as he kisses her on her lips. I'm shaking badly, and I can feel my heart constricting harshly.

I can't go home. And I can't drive like this.

I call the one person who warned me from this, my hands shaking badly.

"Taylor?" The surprise in my best friend's voice clear.

"Karlie, where are you?" I shakily ask, now sitting in my car.

"I just got out of work, why? What's wrong?"

"I need you to come get me."

"Okay, where are you?"

I choke up all of a sudden, the shock slowly going away.

"Tay-Taylor? Are you okay? Tell me where are you." Karlie demands, panic slowly filling her tone.

I tell her in a stuttering voice, but not before blurting "Harry is cheating on me."

There was silence and I hear a car. "I'm coming. Stay there. I mean it Taylor."

I nod, although she can't see me, and hang up. My fiancé is cheating on me.

It was as if the words replaying in my mind were mocking me, telling me I had been naive for so long. I just...why? Is this how one hurts when they see something so shattering? They feel like they've been stabbed in the back, and then stabbed a million times through their chest to their heart? And their lungs felt like they're on fire?

I can't breathe.

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

I just saw something that wiped away every single thing that was supposed to be going right in my life. I can't calm down.

I almost scream if I wasn't so out of breath at the moment when there was a frantic knock on my window. I see Karlie, wearing a black beanie and coat with her hair perfectly curled like it always is. I step out of the car, and she grabs my key from inside, switching off the car first.

"Where is he?" She first asks.

I just stare at her, not even being able to talk. Ironically enough, I feel like telling one person only about this shock. And it's him.

She looks at the restaurant I had parked my car in front of, then looks at me. I still don't say anything. I only move when she starts walking towards it to its entrance.

Then somehow, I spoke. "Kar, no." I breathe out. I feel like suffocating still.

She stops and looks at me again, "Stay here."

I don't say anything else as she already walked in. I walk back to where I saw him, behind the glass window. My lips parted when Karlie saw him, then walked up straight to him. He clearly saw her, as his head turned her direction and I can only imagine his reaction as he stood abruptly, approaching my friend quickly before she reached them.

She slapped him. And I flinched with my lips parted at the scene, almost feeling its force as his head turned in shock. Then she went to the girl as he stood there, she grabbed the glass of what I think is champagne, and spilled it on her. I can nearly hear the girl gasp. Karlie then just walked away, and I find Harry's gaze on me. He stood there looking at me with the color drained from his face.

I almost didn't feel Karlie grabbing my arm and hear her say "let's go." And I almost hear him appologise and say he never did such a thing and that it was just my imagination.

I was stuck in my mind, trying to bring my mind back to reality. How did that happen? I was just going by my day, and then I just saw them there. And the sun still shone, and the sky is still there, and the earth is still turning. It was like my whole world came crashing down, while everything else is fine.

I slumped back in the seat of Karlie's car. Why should I even cry? I'm not the one who did something wrong.

But I did cry in her apartment, at night, right after regaining my sanity and realising that everything actually happened. Did I deserve it though? Did I ever do anything, or even say anything, that made him do such a thing? It's like he threw away the past year we shared, like every word and touch never mattered, like he never meant any feeling he said he felt toward me. I guess that's it. He still hated me, and that's his revenge. He never got over what happened with his friend, my ex, and wanted to ruin me. That must be it. And he won. I let him so stupidly win.

And I never saw it coming. I never suspected a thing. He's a good actor, no, a great one.

But didn't he at least feel something along the way? Didn't I mean something to him at some point? All those times he was jealous? The times he gave me gifts? The times he showed me off to his actual friends? It was all nothing? All?