“Don’t—” I picked up his keys and phone off my desk.
“Here you go. Bye.” I forced myself to pretend I was feeling nothing but anger as I held them out to him. He walked over and took them, trying to hold onto the hand which held them. I pulled it back and thrust it into my pocket. When he opened his mouth to speak, I made sure to get in first.
“Don’t. You have no fucking right to talk to me. Remember that, no right at all. So when you realise you have made the biggest fuck-up of your life, don’t expect to come crawling back to me, apologising and telling me you love me. This is over. You are over.”
The venom in my words had the desired effect and he walked through the door. Slamming it shut, I leaned my forehead against it and hoped for a sign that he might not go through with it.
The bang as the entrance door to the student housing closed crushed the first hope.
The throaty roar as his van came to life crushed the second.
The sound of the engine disappearing into the distance crushed any lingering crumbs which may have remained.
Falling to the floor, I wondered exactly how many pieces my heart had just been broken into. Allowing the fake anger to disappear, my chest heaved with panicky sobs. What would I do now?
Jake was my life.
My love.
My world.
And now that world was spiralling, free-falling through space, ready to disappear into the abyss. I closed my eyes, wanting to go with it.
I pull off the main road and somehow manage to park the van, even though I can’t see a thing. And cry. Cry like a fucking girl. Actually, no. I cry like a man: head resting on the steering wheel so passers-by can’t see the mess I am, chest heaving so much I can feel it burning in my abs.
There should be a word for this, like suicide. Breaking your own heart. Who the fuck decides to do that, anyway? Me, that’s who. Because her heart is worth more than mine. I have to learn to live with this ache, knowing that her life will be the better for it.
Yeah, it was the right thing to do, but that doesn’t mean this doesn’t hurt like hell. It hurts like the other shittiest moments of my shitty life: Dad dying, Mum losing the house.
But this one was my choice.
I have to set her free. She won’t understand it now, but in the long run she’ll thank me. I mean, what do I have to offer someone like her? What sort of life can I give her? She will finish uni, get an amazing job and spend the rest of her life forever apologising for her non-academic, non-high-flying boyfriend. Husband. And she’ll end up hating me for it.
Like she probably does now.
A part of me can’t believe I’ve gone through with it. Every time I’ve rehearsed the various scenarios, I balked at the idea of hurting her. I’ve never consciously hurt her before. Why would I? She is pretty much everything that is good about my life. She is my smile, my joy, my reason to exist. I know now how empty my life was before her, how much she has given me.
Guilt makes the tears burn. I had intended to do it as soon as I got down here last night. Shit, I’d not even told anyone at home I was coming down as I expected to be back home hours ago. It was just going to be a case of ‘make her hate me and leave’.
But I hadn’t got the decency to do that. I’m too selfish. No, I needed to kiss her, taste her, feel all of her, one more time. One final time. When I was lying with her, inside her, last night, I didn’t believe I had the balls to go through with it. How could I? There was nothing to blame it on: no arguments or unreasonable behaviour. Just warmth, and love, and comfort.
But that’s all gone now.
Of course I knew it would hurt, but I hadn’t expected it to feel like I was ripping my own heart out. I mean, I knew it was coming, didn’t I? What I hadn’t thought about was what it would do to me, seeing her hurt like that. I know her too well to fall for the angry mask she tried to conceal her hurt with. That was the moment I felt like the biggest bastard in the world. That was the moment I almost relented and took back the lies I had spoken. I just wanted to take away the pain I had caused.
But it’s better if she feels angry; it will distract her from the hurt. And, as tempted as I am to pick up my phone and make it all better again, I can’t. I have to stay strong. For her.
This is all for her.
It always was.
It always will be.
“Hey, are you okay in there?” The female voice vibrated through my skull. Trying to sit up, I realised the voice and knocking were amplified as I lay with my head resting against the door. I couldn’t even remember falling asleep. And then I remembered. Not about falling asleep, but about Jake.
About him ending it.
Ending us.
As bile rose in my throat, the strange voice disturbed me again. “Just knock back so that I know you’re alive.” As much as I didn’t want to engage with the voice on the other side of the door, I also wanted it to go away and leave me. Like Jake did.