The Reason

Chapter Seven

I grip tighter around his hand, desperate for him to stop saying such cruel things. "Don't say that, Rex. Please don't say such awful things." My begging is louder now with eyes brimming over with heavy tears.

Rex is determined in his cruel crusade, he hasn't even finished with me yet as he wrenches his hand free from my desperate grasp. "I mean every word. I need you to get out of my head and out of my life, Angel." His words come out so viciously loud, he grimaces in agony and brings his hand up against his hurting neck. He winces in my direction, taking slow and deep breaths. It is only his angry pride kicking in that makes him briefly compose himself against the horrific pain that he is now in.

Heartbreak momentarily keeps me rooted to the spot. Rex looks so very deathly pale with such masculine fragility, that it twists and tugs on my insides; silently tearing me apart from the inside out.

My being here is causing him so much physical and emotional pain, reluctantly I know that it's my time to retreat. His scathing words are now a haunting echo clinging to my numb body, and as much as I want to stay, I know that I can't. Staring down at his lost green eyes, I just need to say one more thing before I leave. "I know that you are punishing me for something that I never wanted to do to you, but know that I have always loved you and I probably always will. You'll never understand why I left you, but the reason was always to protect you...not me." My pathetic explanation is sincere and softly said.

Rex remains unnaturally still, the only movement being from the tears that traitorously begin to fill his dull and lifeless eyes. Finally, he manages to whisper out his pained and feeble reply. "Loving you has always been hopeless, Angel."

That's when I know I have to go. I have tried so hard to protect him from the whole sordid truth, when all along it has been my lies that have hurt him more. I lean over him, knowing that he's too weak to push me away. My lips delicately plant a kiss on his clammy forehead, savouring the wonderful warmth of his sallow skin. "Goodbye, Rex." I whisper above him, not wanting to distance my face away from his, but know that I must. Our gaze is uninterrupted and is one that feels like time has been put on painful pause, so we both have time to digest the enormity of our sorrowful goodbye.

It's only when a nurse comes rushing in, is our silent exchange finally broken. "I'm sorry, he really needs to rest now." She apologises, completely unaware of the moment that she has just dissipated into the desperately sad air.

"Of course, I must go." I hurriedly say it, regretfully looking down at Rex one last time. Then with a weighted feeling of loss, I walk away.

In a bereaved bubble, I just kept on walking; one heavy foot in front of the other. I vaguely remember saying goodbye to both Aidan and Marion. Their voices were muffled by my melancholy and their expressions distorted by a distraught daze.

I drove home in the same perpetual bubble of grief, everything just numbly shut out. It was only when I got in through my front door did I allow my emotions to come for me. I slid down the door with my back pressed against it and released the most primal of sobs. I cried with confusion, frustration, anger, sadness and desolation. Rex had unexpectedly come back into my life and I fooled myself into believing that there was a fateful reason for that. With my head down between my knees, I cried for every foolish thought, for every foolish emotion, for every foolish damn thing. When I left Rex all those years ago, I knew I was doing the right thing, yet ignored how terribly wrong it felt. It's wrongness became my ball and chain around the rest of my life, and it was something that I just had to learn to live with. So when I saw him again, part of me wanted to fix that wrongness; I just didn't know how.

Rex made my wrong, right.

He made everything better.

He calmed my unforgiving soul.

Only, I couldn't return those feelings to him. Seeing me again, only ripped open an unhealed wound for Rex. That old wound became raw and infected, and he couldn't handle it. I find that so very hard to deal with. He brought light to my life, yet I only brought darkness to his. He made everything sparkle, and I tainted everything for him.

I kidded myself into believing that he belonged to me once, that he maybe could again. I couldn't have been more wrong. I realise now that Rex was never mine to lose; not even for the second time. I also know that not all the glitter in the entire world could possibly bring back the sparkle to my life. Rex hates me and has every right to. The final curtain had indeed come down on us. There would never be an 'us' ever again. I have to finally accept that and start to move on.

I have been here before, and yet, I somehow always crawl my way back to Rex. I can't keep doing that. Not to myself or to Rex. He has made it perfectly clear how he feels. He hates me. He can't bear for me to look his way or to even touch him. Hell, he even blamed me for getting him shot. No, I can't keep going back. It hurts too damn much.

Slumped down on the floor, I cry and cry and cry; drowning in complete misery until the misery eventually starts to feel totally numb.

And I continued to cry.

Those tears kept falling well until the early hours.

They fell until my tears sorely ran dry. At some weary point, I depressingly made my way up to bed and with the duvet wrapped tightly around me, I eventually drifted off into a burdened sleep. Emotionally and physically I was wrung out. I promised myself that those tears were to be the last that would ever fall for Rex Ford.

He was a beautiful part of my painful past, but it was time to forget him—once and for all.