Abel
This is the last fucking thing I need tonight.
As much as I want her here, it's too dangerous.
I've been battling my mind over her all day and now I'm just in a vulnerable state after drinking the way I had with Stephen.
Just tell her to go, Abel. That's it.
Do what you should've done the very first time she came to your door. Send her away.
I run my shaky, clammy hands down my slacks and fill my chest with air. But as soon as my foot makes contact with the cobblestone, I tilt my head, realizing it's not Ari at all.
"Shyla?" My brows droop as she comes quick down the steps. "What are you-" I seal my lips as soon as her arms wrap around me, her body flush to mine and her head in its old spot over my chest.
I don't move out of shock. I can't. But only for a second. Only a second long enough to remember I'm supposed hug her back.
Right?
I mean this moment is what I've wanted to happen for months. I imagined it every night before I shut my eyes. Every morning as I nuked a toaster strudel in my boxers.
But I haven't imagined it in a while, and now that it's happening I can't decide if it's what I really want anymore.
"Abel...I've missed you so much."
My eyes widen as her arms seem to tighten around me when I really want the opposite right about now.
Is this really happening?
"Um, yeah Shy..." I gently peel back and look down at he tear stricken face. "What's going on? What are you doing here?"
She frowns like I've just spat in her direction. "I just wanted to see you. I've been wanting to see you, I waited here all day...probably should have called first, huh?"
Or answered my text from months back.
"I was working...and then, went out with a coworker."
"A coworker?" She nods, eying me over with suspicion.
Nostalgia zaps me like a lightening bolt over the face she makes, even though it looks a shade off with red, teary eyes.
It's so weird to be standing here. Dimly lit by my porch lights, still just a little buzzed from earlier despite all the water I chugged before I left. Looking at her again after months of relying on old photos just to keep her face fresh in my mind.
She doesn't even look the same.
Her hair is darker, shorter. She's slimmer now. Not as tan and looking at me in a way I'm not used to.
Almost hopeful. Almost...interested in what's to come out of my mouth next.
The last year we were together we'd walk around each other like the other didn't exist. Two souls inhabiting the same space. Not sharing it together. Not caring about each others day, eating the same meal, or even watching the same television show before bed.
The only thing we shared was the mattress, and now she's looking at me like she's the girl I first met and not the one who left me at a time I needed her most.
"You wanna...come in?"
"Yes." A sullen smile begins on her face, but I turn my back to her before I can allow it to make me lose my memory.
I can't ever forget the great times, that's for sure. But the bad? The months waiting for her to come back to me? I'll never forget that.
"Wow, you really changed things here."
I set the keys on the kitchen ledge and beg myself not to look at her, only listening as her footsteps tread further inside.
"Well, we'd only been here a week before you left, so I mostly just unpacked..."
This feels wrong. Off. She doesn't belong here anymore, but she makes herself seem like she does. She carries herself like she does. Walking though my home so confidently. Setting her bag on the coffee table like she used to. Sitting in her designated spot on the couch as her eyes continue to look over my walls and photos with a small smile.
It pisses me off.
"So?" I cross my arms. "You wanted to see me for what? What's the reason."
Her face drops and her tongue seems to stumble over whatever sorry excuse she's conjuring up. "I just, I missed you Abel. Like I said." Her brows bunch as her hands retract into her sleeves. "I can't just come see you?"
"After a whole fucking year of ignoring me? After walking out on me without even the decency—the courtesy of giving me a valid reason why? No, Shyla. You don't get to just show up at my door after I've finally fucking moved on."
"Moved on?"
Her question was like an echo of my own thoughts.
Did I mean that? Did I really move on after just one little forbidden kiss with a sweet, timid student of mine who looked at me in a way Shyla never, ever had?
Maybe I did.
"Yeah. Haven't you? I mean, isn't that what you went off to do? To find better than me, even though I spent every dime I had just to try and make you happy. I poured all of my money into giving you everything you told me you wanted, and I still somehow came up short."
"I know, Abel. I know, I just..." her eyes fall to my feet. I can sense the incoming crying fit she's about to throw herself into and it makes my skin crawl.
I really used to fall for this shit?
"I..." She gasps as the first two tears race down her face and I ball my face up in disgust. "I just...I didn't know what to do."
"About?"
She barely shrugs, leaning forward into her sleeve covered palms and begins to sob. All I can do is shake my head to myself.
Shyla never had a valid reason for leaving me, and that was fine. I came to terms with it months after she were gone. Months after I finally realized her coming back was only a fantasy, and wouldn't be a reality.
A person doesn't need a good reason to stay with someone, but they do need a reason to return, and I'm ready to hear it.
I lean against my wall until she runs out of energy, her sobbing dulling down to a light sniffling when she finally lifts her red, splotchy face to me again.
I raise an arched brow, feeling like I'm in class again. "You done?"
"You're cold," she tells me with a hard expression, sitting pitifully on my sofa.
Immaturity. That's what it was.
That's what was turning me off times ten the longer I looked at her.
Shyla was immature. She was spoiled. She was manipulative as hell, and I don't know why I never saw it until right here, right now.
"Look, Shy. It was nice seeing you tonight, but you're right. You really should've called first. Then I would've had the chance to tell you not to bother coming here."
She laughs humorlessly, her brows raised as she swipes away the last crocodile tear. "Wait. Is this coming from the guy who left me two hundred voicemails in just two days, begging me to call him back? The same guy who sent me video collages of us, sent roses and candy to my mom's house, and called my parents asking for ways to get me back?"
"That's not me anymore. You should leave."
"Seriously?"
"Dead fucking serious. You showed me who you really were and I thank you for that, because now I know you did me a huge favor."
She scoffs at my words, shaking her head at my floor. "Wow, and here I was thinking I made a mistake." She glances up at me. "I did. You loved me in a way no one else ever had and I just let you go."
"The world still turns." I shrug, my fists tightening under my elbows.
It's crazy. This is everything I wanted to happen for over a year now. Even months ago, I would've been elated to see Shyla crying and asking for me back. Admitting her mistake. I'd have went and packed her bags for her, rearranged the house to her liking. Carried her over the fucking threshold. But tonight, I'm completely numb to it all.
Her tears. Her words. Her face.
I could never see her again and be completely satisfied.
I guess that's healing.
"You're an asshole."
"No, you're an asshole." I give her a tight smile. "You don't just fucking abandon someone you supposedly love for an entire year."
She pops up from the sofa like a spring. "You wouldn't let me breathe, Abel! I was suffocated, you were clingy and needy and I couldn't take it anymore!"
"Because I sensed you leaving!"
The words left me with fury. It was like an explosion, a relief. Especially to see the look in her eyes when it did. The realization that I wasn't as oblivious as she thought I was.
I swallow and lower my voice. "I felt it coming months before it actually happened and I was desperately trying to get you to stay with me, Shyla. But it didn't matter what I did, did it? You never really loved me. Even now. You just love the way I love you. You love yourself."
And then it happens. She looks away and an honest tear falls straight from the corner of her eye.
"You're spoiled," I say dully. "You're entitled. You're fucking mean, and quite frankly, you are every quality I hate in a human being. I'm better than settling for someone like you. So thank you for leaving me, and I genuinely wish you the best of luck in life."
She left after that. I didn't even have to open the door for her, she swung it herself and left the house with a slam that rattled my walls.
That rattled me.
I didn't know I had that in me. I didn't even know that's how I truly felt, but my mouth was on autopilot and it felt good to get it all out.
The hollow feeling afterward was bittersweet. Letting her go meant freeing up a whole lot of space inside of me. A new void. Space that's vulnerable and eager to be filled.
I flop down on my sofa, sitting the opposite side Shyla had just sat, and glance over at the cushion, still slightly imprinted by her weight.
I'm moving on.