“But…” I didn’t know what to say. I struggled to find the right words, to make him understand that life without him seemed unbearable. To make him understand that I loved him. Only him.
I didn’t realize I was twirling the ring he’d given me around my finger. The metal, cool and smooth against my fingertips, represented everything he was taking away.
“Keep the ring. I don’t have any use for it.” With that, he got out of the car and walked to my door, opening it.
I sat for a few seconds, processing what had just happened—what he’d just done. Slowly, I gathered my things and climbed out of the car.
My internal self-preservation kicked in, and heartbreak rapidly turned to anger. I stood in front of him, the open car door between us. Slipping the ring off my finger, I flung it at him. It hit him in the face. I smiled slightly when he flinched.
“Keep your damn ring.” I walked away.
I made it to the foyer before I lost it. Dropping my things on the floor, I stood staring, seeing nothing, before I crumpled to my knees and sobbed.
What just happened? How can I face him again?
His words rang through my head over and over.
I don’t love you.
They bounced around in my skull like a ball in a pinball machine. Each time they hit, another piece of my heart broke. I wondered how many pieces a heart could break into before it stopped beating altogether. I was sure I’d find out.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat crying on the cold, wooden floor in the foyer. Shadows moved across the wall, and the room grew dark around me. Still, I didn’t get up. It wasn’t until I heard my dad’s key in the back door that I grabbed my things and hurried upstairs. I wasn’t ready to face anyone yet. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. Then it’d be real. If I didn’t say it out loud, maybe it would go away and things would go back to normal.
I lay across my bed and cried. My nose ran and mixed with my tears. I didn’t care. I only had one thought—Chay and the four words that had just crushed my life.
I don’t love you.
***
My room grew dark. I still lay across my bed in the same position I was hours before. My mom had come upstairs to get me for dinner. She knew immediately something was wrong. I had to tell her. Reliving it, hearing it out loud, was almost worse than living through it the first time. I didn’t go downstairs for dinner, and I couldn’t eat the plate of food she brought me. The thought of food made my stomach churn and bile rise in my throat.
I just wanted to melt away. Forget the day ever happened. Stay in my room until the pain disappeared.
A thought occurred to me, and I sat up on my bed. That must be what my visions were about. The blood, the knife, it was all metaphorical. He stabbed me in the heart when he broke up with me. Somewhere, somehow, I knew it was coming. My subconscious mind knew. The visions were a way to warn me, to prepare me for the horrible pain. It didn’t work. Nothing would have prepared me for it. Nothing.
I reached for my cell phone and called my grams. I needed the purple couch. I felt safe when I snuggled into the soft pillows. My grandma was an eccentric old lady—angel—the kind of woman who had a purple couch in a bright yellow and red living room. Somehow, it worked. It looked cool and I loved it there, with the sassy purple couch and comfy handmade quilts.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Grams…” I started to cry. Or maybe I’d never stopped. Either way, I couldn’t get any words to come out, just sobs.
“Come on over, child. We’ll work out whatever it is.”
My dad drove me to my gram’s apartment and I snuggled on the couch, pulling a patchwork quilt over me. I could hear my dad telling her what’d happened.
“Hmm,” I heard her say. “Let her stay here for a couple of nights. A change of scenery will do her good.”
***
I lay on the purple couch for days. I didn’t eat. I didn’t bathe. I barely slept. I just laid there… thinking. And hurting. Mostly hurting. I felt hollow inside. It was as if he ripped my very core out. They only thing he left was my heart, broken and battered. It kept me alive—barely. So I could hurt. Think. Remember. And then hurt some more.
Sunday afternoon, my grams announced, “Okay. It’s been long enough.”
I slowly turned my head toward her. Everything hurt. My eyes ached from crying. My nose was chapped. My head hurt. My heart hurt. It plodded along in my chest. I could almost feel it slowly, painfully constricting, pushing my gelatinous blood through my aching veins…okay, maybe that was a little melodramatic, but I hurt. My heart was in pieces, and I didn’t think it’d ever be whole again. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be. Chay was all I wanted. Without him, what was the point?
“What’s been long enough?” I wrapped the edge of my quilt around my finger.
“You’ve sulked long enough. No boy is worth this many tears.”
Chay is.
“It’s time to get up, take a shower, and rejoin the living.”
“Not yet.” I sighed and closed my eyes.