My legs are leaping through the lobby.
The elevator trip up to The Chronicle truly feels as though it will kill me.
Amongst a car full of passengers, I stand alone, a force of pure reveling fury. I'm burning them with it, because the nearer I get to the source, to the person who is the cause of this knife in my gut, this overwhelming pain that has spread to every part of my body now—the true pain of heartbreak—the angrier I become.
I slide past them, knocking through their shoulders to be the first one out. My face is a literal punching bag, my eyes the shade of a fire hydrant, burning in this artificial light. Eyes follow me through the hallway as I bound for my office, more importantly the desk outside of my office.
Samantha stands slowly seeing me coming.
By the wariness on her face, I'm sure it was her.
I'm fucking positive.
"Get into my office," I growl, storming past the desk, bounding through the door. I begin to shed my coat, staring out at the impressive Seattle skyline. The door shuts gently, a sign of submission.
I throw my coat down on my chair, exhaling, attempting to calm down. It's useless. I know it. My body is ridden with pain. It's everywhere.
Because right now, Aidan hates me. He thinks I'm the worst person he's ever met.
"Do you have anything to tell me?" I ask her, without turning. I don't even want to look at her.
Her silence lasts a lifetime.
"You needed to know. You're blind with this infatuation. Jo, you barely know him. This isn't love. I told him to send it to you because you needed to see what was inside of there."
"You don't know...a goddamn thing about me and him. Not a thing. And your presumptions, your interference has caused me quite a lot."
I turn around, lacing my arms together. She stares at my face, showing me why she's my assistant and not in the field. She can hide nothing.
"Jo, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened but—"
"I'll tell you what happened. Aidan met my mother yesterday, spent the whole goddamn day with her. Today, I told him to get my newspaper. Imagine my shock when he enters holding an opened envelope containing information about his dead family, which was nestled so sweetly for me to find on my doorway."
"Jo—"
"You can imagine how he reacted to that. How quickly he packed his things, how quickly he called me a liar."
"I didn't know they'd just leave it on the doorstep like that. I didn't know. I'd have given it to you here if I'd gotten it first!"
"I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT THEM!" I shout, wide-eyed. "I told you to tell them no. And you completely disregarded everything I said. You lied to my face and you went behind my back—"
"Josephine, I'm sorry!" Her face has paled considerably. "I shouldn't have done it. I had no idea the repercussions would be this bad—"
"I don't want to see you," I spit out, shaking with rage. "I don't want to see you for the rest of the day. Stay and work or leave, I don't care. Just close that fucking door behind you."
"Jo—"
"Get out, Samantha," I snap, showing her I'm in no mood for more apologies, excuses. The minute she's gone, the minute I'm free of her, I drop into my seat, and I clutch my head, trying to think, come up with some plan to make him listen.
He was so reluctant about this from the beginning.
There's no way to fix it. I know that.
It's over. He's gone, and it's over.
I spend the day in that kind of darkness, repeating that to myself over and over again. Not a single person enters my office. I'm not sure if that's pure luck or the fact that Samantha is keeping them out, but I'm glad for it.
By the time I realize what time it is, the clock reads seven PM, and the sun has just set. I pick up my things, which are exactly as I left them this morning, thrown about and stand. My body cracks under the duress, my night with Aidan catching up to me.
However, the reminder isn't as sweet as I imagined it would be.
I walk from the space, and into the hallway, finding the office dark, the lights off.
Everything is a blur.
I'm not really sure how I find my car, how I get into it and turn it on.
I'm not sure how I get home.
Mrs. Castillo is regretfully pacing the lobby when I arrive, and although she tries to speak to me, I pass by her without a sound. I don't care if I offend her. I don't care if she's worried.
I make it to the top of the stairs, and regard my doorway with disgust.
This doorway is the cause of all of this.
I'm blaming an inadamate object for my sorrow. I've reached a new low.
I stick the key into the door, and pull it open. The fact that the light is on is what startles me first. What startles me second is the sight of Aidan, seated on my couch, waiting for me.
His eyes are calm, incredibly calm compared to this morning. He's hiding so much, a mask of resistance covering his beautiful features. He looks just as bad as I do.
I'm frozen in the doorway, only able to stare at him.
His coat is beside him on the couch, his bag nowhere to be seen. The papers are still exactly as I left them on the table, exactly where he deposited them. I'm sure he knows I didn't look.
"I didn't even make it out of the city," he reluctantly says.
"You've been here...this whole time?"
He nods, pressing his lips together in nervous thought. "Yes."
"Did you go through my things? Did you find anything else to peg me as the devil?" I ask, my anger toward his hostility this morning flaring for the first time today. He looks down shamefully, and the sight is a welcome one. "You could have called me, spared me what I went through all day."
"I-I've sat here in a fog, all day, trying to think of what I'd say to you when you walked in here."
I close the door behind me, my limbs finally working. It shuts gently, and just the smell of him in my apartment, the smell of his cologne, of his body wash, it washes through my senses, driving me to madness. I press my hands to the door, breathing in and out, finding it damn hard to look at him.
I don't know how I'm going to turn around.
"You destroyed me today," I confess, blandly, my voice devoid of emotion. I'm purely stating it to him. "Do you know that? Do you know how much?"
I turn on him, shaking my head in disbelief.
"You know, you're not the only one who has trouble trusting people, who has trouble letting people in. I put my trust in you as well, Aidan. And you, walking out that door, you showed me you're incapable of giving me what I want to give you."
He stares at me, just staring, no words for the longest time.
I can't be mad at him.
He warned me countless times that he was fucked up, that he's damaged beyond repair. His face is riddled with the deepest kind of pain, and it makes it impossible to be mad at him.
Deep inside, he's just trying to survive.
He's here, and he isn't telling me I'm right, which is cause for some hope.
"Why did you come back?"
"I...I was driving and I...kept seeing your face. I could hear the sound of your voice when you wake. Little things like your eyes when you see something that you like, or how you bite your lip when you're thinking really hard. And I turned around. I didn't care whether you were lying, or if it was just bad luck. I didn't care. I just had to get back. The miles were suffocating."
My eyes close. His words are overwhelming.
His need, his blind need, even more so.
He stands up, making a low, incoherent noise. I think he's trying to keep himself from losing himself altogether. He comes right up to me, and clasps my face with both his hands.
I'm speechless between them.
"But then I got here, and I sat in this apartment for hours and I couldn't deny it." He shakes his head, caressing my face, rough with passion. "I feel like you're the one. I feel it deep set in my bones. It's why it's so easy to run. It's why I try so hard to deny it. Because there is so much I want to keep from you forever, and I don't have that power anymore."
I press my hands to his chest, hesitantly, feeling how fast it's racing.
"I'm so confused," he says, blinking. His voice is no higher than a whisper. "I'm so confused, Josephine. I-I want to trust you. I do. I think I do. I want to be here. I saw you cry this morning, and in spite of everything I'd seen, it tore me to fucking pieces. It tore me up because you've been so strong, and so brave...so understanding from the moment I met you, and when it came down to it, I walked out. I left you like that."
His hands are clutching each other tightly, so tight they become white. "I want to say I'm sorry, but I know it's not enough. I want to say that I'm prepared to trust you, but I know...I know you wouldn't believe it."
He's scared, more scared than I've seen him before. His touch is soft, and tender, as if he's taking the opportunity to hold me while he can.
"There's only one thing I can think of, one thing to do."
His eyes withdraw so quickly with desolation, misting around the edges.
"And I-I have no idea how I'm going to do this, but I know I can't keep this from you any longer. I want to be free of it, promise or no promise." His breath is so shaky, so unsure. "I don't know if I can stay. I don't even know if you want me to, but this is the only way I can force myself to try...by telling you...by telling you the truth."
My eyes extend slowly in disbelief as he so clearly wrestles with himself.
Holy shit.
He finally looks into my eyes. "I-I need to tell you what really happened. I have to tell you everything."