Broken Strings

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E

She didn't even look up at him as he mumbled a sorry and sat down next to her.

She slapped his hand away as he reached out and tried to wipe her tears away.

If he had really cared, he shouldn't have made her cry in the first place. If he really loved, he shouldn't have done the things he had. The things he had done to ruin her.

"Fuck Anisha, I didn't mean it like that." He really hadn't.

He was just curious.

He had seen things between Anisha and Sebastian once. He was more than aware of the things Sebastian felt towards his wife. But when he had asked Anisha about it, she had just said it was a mistake.

But there was a possibility.

"I really didn't mean it like that. I just...Anisha." He awkwardly reached out and held her face in his hands; his thumb brushed away the tears that slid down her face.

This was the last thing he wanted. He didn't want to hurt Anisha. He didn't mean to hurt Anisha.

"You don't deserve her. You don't deserve Mira." Anisha pushed his hands away and scooted a little further. She didn't want to be close to him.

A somber silence took hold. And neither of them spoke.

Andrew was staring at her. Intently, begging for an answer. And Anisha was staring at the floor.

"You don't deserve Mira. And you sure as fuck don't deserve me." She let out a small laugh, it was somewhere between a sob and a pathetic laugh.

She could remember everything.

The slight hint of nervousness in his voice when he had first asked her out on a date. The glint of tease in his eyes whenever he scored a higher grade than her on a Midterm. The way his eyes had brightened and he had smiled at her as her father had walked her down the aisle. The way he used to come home an hour early just so he could cook dinner for her before she came home from school. The way he would place small kisses along her jaw as he repeatedly whispered over and over again how much he loved her. The way he had looked at her when Ryan was born, like she had given him everything he could have asked for.

She still remembered all of it.

The nights she would stay awake, sitting on the couch and waiting for him to come home or when she would wake up in the middle of the night, to an empty bed. The days where he would ignore her and lie to her telling her he was working late again. The ways his eyes would darken and his voice would be nothing but cold as he accused her of being responsible for what had happened to Cassie. The way Ryan had cried and screamed for his mother to come back home, because he wanted his parents to live together. The way she had given in, over and over again, holding onto the belief that he would change.

She was sick of it. Of all of it.

Right now, she didn't want to deal with him right now.

She just didn't want to deal with life right now. She wanted to sleep. And maybe never wake up again.

"Anisha, I'm sorry." His voice held vulnerability. "I'm really sorry." For everything. He really was.

He was always fucking things up. He wanted to fix things, not make them worse. But this is what always happened.

What hadn't they tried? Counseling. Time Apart. They had talked things over and over, again and again. They figured out a way to make things work, at least for the time being.

Because cheating on Anisha had been a mistake. He hadn't meant to. He really hadn't. He was hurting. And Anisha was the same.

She did rash things when she was hurting.