Edited/re-written
Leila's POV
Feelings are leaving
"Hi."
"Hey."
"How are you feeling, are you okay?" He asked as he fumbled with his cup of coffee. His eyes felt somewhat piercing as if they were gaping through my soul. I've never felt more uncomfortable in his presence. Why is that? Is it because we're drifting apart?
That must be it.
My worse nightmare is coming to pass right before my eyes.
"I'm fine. You know I would have been better if I got to see you more but, here we are." I couldn't help but take a jab at him out of bitterness. Maybe I'm just angry with myself for thinking this long distance could work. Three hours does not seem that far away, but when you're wrapped up in your own personal life it feels as if you're seas apart.
"Baby, you know I've been a lot busier lately. I told you about the interviews I've been going to. I'm turning 21 soon, you really think I want to be working at an arcade?"
"Then enroll here!"
"I'm not. You know school is not for me. I'm a hands-on worker, Leila. I'm not the type to spend four more years doing school work for a degree that won't guarantee me getting a placement in my field of interest. And don't tell me anything about taking chances."
I sat there in complete silence, taking in each word little by little, breaking them down...assessing them with a pair of eyes too tired to stay open as exhaustion rippled through my veins. I ran my fingers through my greasy hair as I forced myself to sit upright.
"Reese, are you hiding something from me?" I muttered. The question has been nagging me since I caught him at the club. He hasn't done anything distrustful, however, I can't shake the feeling off.
"Because the Reese I-I know and love wouldn't be so pitiful and constantly use excuses as to why he won't make an effort to see me. The Reese I know wouldn't use words to make anything up to me, but actions and right now all I hear are words, words and more words."
I could see the frustration coaxing each muscle on his face to twitch and contort into an expression that coincided with how he felt. Even if he bottles it up, he can't hide his emotions from me. "Stop being dramatic. You know that I love you but recently it's like I constantly have to prove that to you. Stop pressuring me to prove something to you that you already know!"
"I love you, Reese."
"Don't say that, you don't mean that. You're just drunk, Leila."
"I mean it! And I know that you know it too."
Before I got here, I saw him through the window sitting at this very table with his head down on his phone and that sweet smile he'd wear only for me. I saw the red tinge that ran down from his chin to the corner of his lips as he blushed the way he'd only blush for me.
Who?
Who does he love now?
"You don't love me anymore, do you? When I needed you most you weren't even here for me. You visited me once Reese, once after the shooting when I was shaken up and traumatized. You knew that you were the only person I had and you weren't even there!"
"I do love you! What more do you want me to say!? I'm sorry! I'm sorry that I wasn't here, Leila. I can't control how long I work! I-I've been trying to make more of an effort ⎯ "
"⎯ I buy designer clothes, not bullshit." The words slipped from my mouth before I could contain myself from releasing the pure rage that has been boiling within me for the past two weeks. I want to believe him, I want to believe that he genuinely cannot make time for me but something is not right.
And I won't shake off my gut feeling because of a simple sorry.
"D-do you love me?"
"...I-I don't know, Leila."
"My friends were the ones who were comforting me and they went through the same thing as myself. So many more of us could have died that day, Reese! I could have been dead. So imagine comforting someone in a situation that you yourself were in...one as scary as this! Goddamit my freaking professor comforted me more than you ever could."
"What? Your professor? Why did you feel the need to put that in there unless the comforting was more than just a one-off pat on the back?"
Is that seriously all he heard from what I just said?
"You want to know why?" I found myself spitting venomously as my eyes penetrated his glowering gaze. I want to hurt him. I want to hurt him so badly. "Because that's exactly what it was. You don't even realize that you just admitted to the fact that all you could have given me was a one-off pat on the back when my professor did way more than that."
"What professor?"
"My roommate. I told you my roommate was a guy."
His eyes narrowed, "yeah but you never said it was your professor, Leila. And why else would you keep that from me? It's him, isn't it? The young-looking one from the club? The one you couldn't take your eyes off when you were with me?" He babbled, his voice rising an octave higher with each question that tumbled past his lips.
"I trusted you enough to share a room with a guy. I mean there's nothing you could do about it and neither myself. I've been accommodating with that uncomfortable predicament, Leila. Who the hell allows his girlfriend to share a room with a guy for god knows how long!? Yet you're giving me shit as if I'm the only one in the wrong when you've been lying to me this whole time?"
"You know it's true. I know it's true...we all do."
"That's not true, Mom! Shut up!"
"No, you shut up! You're a fucking hypocrite, Leila! YOU KNOW YOU ARE!"
"I wasn't lying!"
"You were keeping it a secret! Why would you do that!? Why would you not specify that your roommate is your fucking Professor? Do you think that's the craziest shit I've ever heard in my life? It's the guy from the club. It makes sense since he's so young. Why would you not tell me? Why now when you only said it in anger like you wanted to hurt me!? You're sleeping with him aren't you?"
His last sentence simmered into a quiet whistle ⎯ a whistle that danced through my ears, serenading me with its taunting implications. "Answer me, Leila. You're not sleeping with him, are you?"
I'm the lion.
I'm not the prey.
My mom was right.
I'm the lion.
I'm the lion.
"⎯ I'm not!" The gasp that hitched within my throat was enough to warn me that if I remained here any longer I'd have a panic attack. I may not have cheated on him with Blake, but Peter did kiss me. I was going to tell him but so much has happened and in comparison to a school shooting, it seemed so minuscule.
I can't tell him now.
He'll hate me.
He'll leave me.
I'll be alone.
I'll be all alone.
"Leila?" His voice seemed so distant. I couldn't grasp it. I couldn't hold onto it like I'd been doing for all these years. Why is his voice so distant? "Lei, are you okay?"
"You don't know if you love me?"
"God, Lei! It's four in the freaking morning!"
"You didn't answer my question, Reese."
"I didn't. I promise I didn't. I didn't cheat on you, Reese. I didn't."
His eyes widened as if finally coming to the realization that I was just a few steps from falling off the cliff of sanity. He outstretched his hands toward me slowly as if I were a feral animal that he did not want to scare away.
But that's just it...
The fact that he has to do this breaks me into a million pieces. I'm a fragile porcelain doll sitting at the edge of a bookshelf, drawing closer and closer with each blow from life. I'm so close to shattering. I've been so close to shattering.
Why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this to him?
Why am I here?
"Leila ⎯ baby where are you going?" Reese's voice grew alarmed as I shot up from my seat. I ignored his shouts of protest as I hurriedly ambled across the restaurant to the exit. His footsteps echoed behind me, and a few times I could feel his fingers brushing the hems of my shirt but I brushed him away each time as I grew increasingly closer to my car.
"Leila! Where are you going!? Why are you leaving? What the hell was that back there? Did you just have a panic attack? Leila, you're not in the right state of mind to drive." His questions and pleas were rushed...frantic as if speaking any slower would convince me less.
"I am not fragile, Reese! I can drive perfectly fine!" I snapped as I flew the door to my car open. He grabbed my hand and whirled me around to face him. "I never said you were fragile, Leila. Just tell me what's going on. I'm sorry, I'm sorry for implying that you cheated on me, Lei."
But you're right.
I can't tell him that.
He'll hate me.
I'm a bad person. I'm such a bad person.
"Reese, please let go." I shoved him away with as much force as I could muster and tried to climb into my car but soon I was back in his arms, wrapped tightly in his strong grip that was unwilling to let go. "Please, don't do this. Don't make me feel like the bad guy, Leila."
"You're a coward. You're just scared to say you don't love me because you think it'll hurt me. Just admit it, Reese. I won't get hurt."
"That's not true...that's not, It's not that I don't love you. I do."
"I don't need your pity love, Reese."
But I did.
I did need his pity love. I still do need his pity love.
And that day...I forced him to love me because he was all I had.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Reese." Finally, the emotional baggage that has been weighing down on my shoulders for the last few weeks crumbled in the hands of the guy who I forced to love me back. I've always done this; I've always bottled in my emotions and then release them onto him when they begin to become too much to bear.
Why am I doing this to him?
I'm the bad guy here.
Not him.
"Why are you sorry?" His voice was low, gentle, too gentle. The type of gentle you'd use if you were coaxing a child to reveal their wrongdoings to you without wanting to scare them off. Is this what I am? A child? "I'm sorry for forcing you to love me." I sobbed those haunting words into his chest and from the way his body went rigid and his heart rate had begun to slam harshly against my cheek...I knew I was right.
I forced him to love me.
"I do love you."
"I don't believe you."
"It's the truth. I was just scared to say it so I said I don't know."
How? How couldn't I have realized that at that moment this wasn't a declaration of love? This was a declaration of sympathy. Why was I so desperate that it blinded me? No one wanted to love me after Kyle's death and I wanted it back. I wanted to be loved again.
How can I hate him?
How can I hate the guy who loved me for my own sake?
"It's true, isn't it?" I was too scared to look into his eyes as I asked this haunting question.
I waited. I waited for his response but it never came.
What was left was the final whistle which snipped the cord that I have been desperately holding onto.
I didn't know what time it happened but I was no longer in his arms. I was sitting in my car, key shoved into the ignition, trembling hands on the steering wheel and eyes forced to remain locked on the blurry road.
And he stood there.
He stood outside my window, his tear-stained eyes burning through my side profile.
And he watched.
He watched as I drove away.
He didn't stop me.
Not once did he stop me.
"You're a hypocrite, Leila. You say you wish you had died instead of him and yet I can see on your face that you're happy you're alive! You don't get to be happy! You d-don't get to be happy when you killed my son!"
You're right, mom.
I don't.
Well damn.
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