❛ take me back to the night we met. ❜
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HIS LIDDED PUPILS glance up at the ceiling. He shifts uncomfortably, flinging the alabaster bedsheets that shrouded across his lower body aside and groaned lowly. It's been almost a week since their breakup and ever since Ronnie's departure he's been experiencing insomnia.
The citrus smell of her shampoo still burned through his bedsheets and pillow cases, torturing him and filling his body with an disquietude queasiness. He shouldn't be harboring any ounce of discordance as it was his primary decision for their sudden rupture, he knows - but it still didn't surcease the feelings he had for her.
River tried to distract himself with work and spending most of his nights down at the bar with Teddy, but of course everything reminded him of her and the previous memories they shared. Particularly, it prodded him of everything he had.
Ruffling his fingers through the bedraggled hair that matted against his face and sodded with sweat, he exhaled an exhausted breath flickering his eyes to the phone that sat on his nightstand next to the bed. Pondering nervously and biting on the plush skin of bottom lip, he falters debating whether or not if he should call her.
Allowing his emotions to conquer, River reaches over and grabs ahold of the phone. He presses the numbers on the keypad and brings it to his ears, keenly awaiting while the sound of the ringing whirrs his ear drums. He nibbled at the bristly skin around his fingers until he heard the sounds of her soft, alluring voice.
"Hello?" She asked, voice orotund and thick.
River's heartbeat pulsates as he writhed his fingers around the small phone and clears his throat. "Um. H-Hi." He chastises himself, squeezing his eyes shut and releasing evened breaths attempting to tranquil his nerves. She's silent and for a small moment River feared that she'd hung up on him.
"Why are you calling me?" She disputes after withdrawing from her silence. He acknowledges the detectable shift in her voice. It dissolved from a soft honey tone that quickly transited with a taut one. River rebuffs the new shift. Sitting up and resting his back against the headboard, he releases another deep labored breath.
"I—um—I just wanted to hear your voice again. I haven't been sleeping since you left and I thought that talking to you would make this easier but I miss you." River confesses, feeling the weight of his heart increase.
"No. You don't get to do that. You made the decision to end the relationship, River."
He sighs as his fingers gently massage his aching temples. "Yeah, I know." The retort is somber just as his current mood. River knew he should've expected this response from her, she was understandably vexed about his imprudent decisions but he needed to hear her voice and expresses his deepest regrets. A composite of emotions spurred him and he was uncertain of his ability to proceed without her presence.
"I promise I never meant to hurt you. All I wanted was for you to be happy but I can't do this without you, Ronnie. I'm spending more time at clubs and bars with Teddy than I am sleeping because every time I try to close my eyes all I can see is you and then I'll remember that you aren't here and I can't touch you anymore or hold you like I used to."
"River." Ronnie sighs, emitting an audible breath trying to ignore the tremulous tone in his wobbly voice. Of course she knew about the struggles he currently endeavored without her because she as well encountered her own afflictions since her departure from the blond - haired, azure colored eyes man that made her heart rate hasten anytime their lips touched. Loneliness was all she felt anytime she'd awaken to an empty bed in the morning.
Ronnie missed the soft, lingering, feverish kisses he would coax her with in the morning; how his nimble fingers would gradually stroke at the flesh on her hips making her writhe underneath him from his gentle touch. But she couldn't ignore the despair she felt when he gazed into her eyes and stated that their relationship could no longer continue. River claimed that he had no intentions of hurting her but it ended up being the exact thing that he did.
"No. Please, don't." He shakes his head as if she could see him. He's almost grateful that she isn't here to witness how inevitably pathetic he looked right now; heavy tears that glossed his irises and blurred his vision, stained his rosy cheeks.
River's voice croaked with every demanding plead. From the weight of the sigh she'd just exhaled, he understood the context behind it and started to fear the next words that would slip from her mouth. "I know that everything is my own damn fault but please, don't give up on me."
She doesn't want to. Ronnie loved River more than anything, though their relationship had a few calamities she always envisioned herself having a future with him. Ronnie still wanted that but she wasn't sure if she was strong enough to endure another heartbreak from River. It appeared as if he was always making irrational decisions pertaining to their relationship and albeit she knows he means well, Ronnie knows that they can no longer move forward until he realizes what he wants.
"I can't be with someone who doesn't know what they want. You said that you loved me, River but then you breakup with me a few days later? And now you're calling me at four in the morning begging me not to give up on our relationship when you were the one that did." She states, bitterness seethes through her voice. River head slouches with his slumped shoulders mirroring the same movement because he realizes that her words were true.
River allowed his reluctant doubts and insecurities subdue him in his decision of ending their relationship. He never expected to feel so much agony from being separated from Ronnie. It was like their hearts were connected as one and without her - River began to slowly feel himself struggling to breathe. He felt a growing tightness arraying in his chest and a burning ache that clogged in the back of his throat.
"I should go. I have orientation later on today and I need some rest." She informed him suddenly interrupting his musings and drawing him back into his melancholy reality.
"Ronnie I—" But before he could complete rest of his sentence he was met with the sound of the dial tone. "love you." He murmurs, sighing softly as he places the phone back on the hook.
