Broken Strings

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

"We kissed once or twice, you already know that. I wanted to hurt you. That's all it was. I wanted to hurt you. To make you feel the way you make me feel." She spoke, quietly, almost afraid to admit her short-lived affair with her best friend. She shook her head, looking back down at her hands. "Fuck, that's not even the truth. I want even thinking about you when I kissed him."

Anisha turned around, sucking on her lip and looked at him. Her eyes were glossed with tears. And so were his.

His tired blue eyes met her dull brown ones.

"Fuck."

Before she could help it, she pushed herself onto him, her face colliding against his chest. She sobbed as he held onto her, wrapping his arms around her.

She held onto him with everything she had.

Anisha wasn't even sure what she was crying for.

Maybe, maybe it was the fact that he still cared. As pathetic as it was, she did mean something to him. That was all she had ever wanted. To know whether or not he did. If he ever did.

Or maybe, maybe it was because everything was ending for her. The sun was slowly setting for her. She was far too gone to be saved. All this, it only made it harder for her to give in. It was just harder for her.

She slowly stilled, her eyes closing as she tried to control her pain. She wished she could just stop feeling. She didn't want to feel anything anymore.

"I just wanted someone to love me." Her voice was muffled against his chest. It was all she had had wanted. That's all Sebastian had been for her. Anisha Hayes was well aware of the way he still felt towards her. At least for the past few years. She didn't want Sebastian though, she wanted Andrew.

She had played Sebastian, given him false hope that he might still have a chance.

"And he did, he was willing to love me when you wouldn't. When you didn't. When no one else did. I just wanted someone to want me, to love me." She pulled away from him, finally letting him see how broken she really was.

She let him see her, the real her. The Anisha Hayes who was struggling to stay alive. The Anisha Hayes who had scars on her wrists. The Anisha Hayes who had a broken heart. The Anisha Hayes he had destroyed be loving. The Anisha Hayes who was far too gone to be saved.

A ghastly smile highlighted her face as she stared off into space, her eyes focusing in on the dining table. "You know, when I first figured out you were cheating on me, it hurt. It fucking hurt. I just...I've never been able to figure out why I wasn't good enough. That's what really hurts. That's what still hurts."

"Every night, I used to sit here and wait. I used to wait for you to come home, for you to come home to me. Every night, I'd wait five minutes, then another five minutes. Your dinner would get cold and I'd reheat it. I'd wait for you, another five minutes. Every night, you'd come home, late- drunk, with disheveled hair and lipstick stains on your collar. I always knew that you were out with her while I was waiting for you at home."

She had ignored all the signs of her broken marriage, holding onto the little bit of hope that maybe things would get better.

"At first, it hurt a lot. I mean, what could she give you that I couldn't? And I guess that's the problem. It's my problem. I'm the problem."

"I've never been enough." She really hadn't.

Her entire life, she'd focused on trying to be enough. But it seemed that Anisha Hayes always fell short. "My mom used to tell me that you would leave me. She used to tell me that I wasn't the kind of girl someone like you would want, especially for the rest of your life. And I'm not. I'm really not. You got tired of me, you tired of being with me."