Oops! Această imagine nu respectă Ghidul de Conținut. Pentru a continua publicarea, te rugăm să înlături imaginea sau să încarci o altă imagine.
~
Puffy eyes, a red nose, and a night of insomnia later, I showed up at his doorstep and dialed his number.
He picked up on the second ring. "Hello?" His voice was thick with sleep.
"Can you meet me outside?" I sounded too hopeful.
He didn't answer, just cut the call, and I began pacing around frantically.
Finally the front door opened, and there he was. In a simple blue T-shirt (blue had always been his color) and gray sweats, eyes full of sleep. As if he hadn't ripped my heart apart the night before.
When he saw me he darted his head this way and that and took my arm, leading me to the backyard.
"Why are we coming here?" I asked him.
"So no one sees us." He stood in front of me with folded arms. "What do you want, Sarah?"
What do you want. The words stung, piercing what was left of my heart. "Are you serious?"
He sighed. "Look, Sarah. I told you. It's not gonna work. We can't." He began to walk away when I grabbed his arm and turned him towards me. I cupped his cheek, made him look into my eyes.
So many times I had envisioned us being close this way as a married couple. So many times I had fantasized about wrapping my arms around his neck with his arms around my back as we swayed to the tune of a chilly breeze on a summer night.
"Do you not love me?" I asked him softly.
He grabbed the hand that was cupping his cheek and sighed. "No, it's not that, Sarah. It's just, I—" He gazed at me, eyes roving all over my face.
"Then what is it?" I cupped his other cheek, bending his forehead to meet mine. And then I said the words that terrified me to even think about. Because they indicated a very dangerous possibility that I wasn't ready to accept. A possibility I had been vaguely aware of since the beginning but had shoved to the back of my mind to protect myself and my poor, weak heart.
"Why don't you want me?"
He sighed again. It seemed that was all he had been doing that day. He stepped away from me, and immediately the warmth of surety left me, replaced by cold, cold uncertainty. I wrapped my arms around my torso, heart beating wildly in anticipation for his next words. "Sarah . . . look, I'm sorry. I can't. Just go." He backed away from me and disappeared into his house.
If I thought my heart had crash landed before, it had been nothing compared to what I felt that day as I sunk into the ground in my beloved's backyard.
My heart was a target. His words were bows and arrows.
