I came into her like a high-pressured hose. There was a moment where I saw her eyes and she saw me and suddenly we were somewhere else, another world of shimmering air. It seemed to last for all eternity.
And in that eternity I got a glimpse of myself.
That wasn’t just fucking. That wasn’t just long overdue.
This was love.
I was head over heels in love with her. No, that didn’t describe it. I was tear my fucking heart out and throw it at her, beg her to take it into hers. I was falling from the greatest heights with no safety net below. I was giving everything of my own life for hers, giving up every inch of my soul so she could wear it proudly. I was a former king on my knees in front of the queen. A jester begging for a chance. I was powerless, helpless and at her mercy.
And that was the one place I swore I’d never be again.
To love was to hurt.
I wasn’t strong enough to survive it again if everything went wrong.
Against all my instincts, I pulled out of her and walked toward the bathroom without even a backward glance. It was all too much. Way too fucking much.
I lost everything before it even began.
I was reduced to a coward, hiding from future pain. How could I love someone who didn’t love me? Even I didn’t love me.
Eventually I came out of the bathroom and saw the door to the den closed. She was in there and lord knows what she was feeling or thinking. I felt so terrible having to hurt her the way I was going to. But I had no other choice. It was better this way, now. It would be superficial to her.
I slipped on my pajama pants and went to the couch. I was dazed, empty. Whatever ice had thawed was freezing over again, starting somewhere in my heart.
There, I thought. This is safer. Better.
I put my head in my hands and wondered what I’d say next.
Then she came out of the den. I heard her walk up to me. I didn’t need to look at her to read the worry she was giving off.
“Are you OK?” she asked, her voice wavering.
Fuck me. And she was being polite about it. She cared. She really did.
But she doesn’t love you, I told myself, almost yelling in my head. She told you she doesn’t love you and you saw the truth in her eyes. To love her means to hurt yourself.
I could take pain but not that road again.
She put her hand on me. I jumped.
“Dex,” she said, “Talk to me.”
Right. Like talking would do any good. I tried talking to her before this whole mess started. I know what she said.
When I didn’t answer her, she grabbed my arm and tried to pull it away from my head.
“Dex, please!” she yelled.
I looked at her. I had no idea what she saw.
Neither did she.
She leaned forward. “What is it? What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” the words just fell out of me. “And I hope you remember it that way.”
She sucked in her breath. “What do you mean by that?”
Oh, she knew.
I yanked myself out of her grip. “What do you think I mean?”
She wasn’t biting. She looked defiant. Stubborn. Na?ve.
“Dex, just tell me what you’re talking about, you owe me this much.”
I had to laugh. She didn’t get it.
“I don’t owe you anything, Perry.”
It probably came out a little meaner than I expected. But this wasn’t about me owing her. She had the chance to owe me and she turned her back.
“Dex, what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?”
“Why are you acting like this,” I shot back, annoyed. “All in my face and bugging me every fucking second.”
OK. Now I was just being nasty. I couldn’t help it. Whatever good there was in me was being replaced by anger. Anger was so much better than fear. To be the one inflicting pain was better than being in pain yourself.
“Bugging you?” she repeated. “We just had sex and you’re freaking out like-”
“I’m not freaking out about it!” I snapped.
She was unfazed at my obviousness. “Then what the hell is this? Because we were all fine an hour ago before this happened.”
I put my head back in my hands. She was right. We had been fine. We had been us. We had been perfect. Now the tables were turned and I didn’t know which way was up.
“I knew this was a mistake. This changed everything.”
I thought I heard a gasp from her. I didn’t care anymore.
“This wasn’t a mistake,” she cried out. “How could you say that?”
I decided to drive the point home, enjoying my nastiness.
“Typical. You’re reading too much into this.”
Let’s see if she had any real feelings over that.
She looked like I had punched her in the face. She leaned against the couch, gasping for breath and kind of crumpled over on herself. She looked like she was dying and I was the cause.
I didn’t drive that point home, I speared her with it. My words were ripping her apart from the inside. But why? It was just sex to her, wasn’t it? She didn’t love me. Did she? Why was she hurting like this? It was just me. Just Dex.
“Perry,” I asked cautiously. She stayed in her huddled position, like the life was being sucked out of her.
Her head snapped up and someone had replaced her eyes with that of a viper’s.
“What was this to you, Dex?” she sneered with bottomless hate. “A rebound? An itch you had to get out of your system? Another notch to add to your bedpost? Another person to screw around with, mentally and physically?”
Oh fuck. I couldn’t speak.
She continued, her eyes fixing on mine bitterly, “OK then, guess it was all of the above. Glad I know how you finally feel.”
Me feel?
Before I could process that she took off for the den. She was throwing all her clothes in her bag.
Packing.
I leaped to my feet and came for her. “Where are you going?”
I grabbed her arm but she got free and shoved me back, hard. I was shocked at her strength, at her anger that was bleeding out of her. I never expected this.
“You made your point Dex,” she said as if she were spitting out old gum. “You’ve now been very clear.”
“Perry, wait,” I protested weakly, “you can’t leave now, it’s snowing, you’re in your pajamas.” I had no idea how I was going to explain but I had to do something. The last thing I thought she’d do was actually leave me. I thought we’d fight then talk about it. Like we always did.
“I’m leaving and I’m not coming back! Rebecca was right about you, you’re nothing but a scared little boy!”
Rebecca had said that? No matter, I had to stop her. She was acting crazy. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. She didn’t care enough. She wasn’t supposed to!
I grabbed her in a panic, anything to keep her. I brought her up to me, my grip tight, trying to understand, to hold on.
“Why do you care so much?!” I yelled at her. My voice cracked over the next bit, “You told me you didn’t love me!”
With a huge gust of strength, she wrestled out of my grasp and stumbled to the door. I reached for her but she turned to me in fury. She looked me right in the eye and I saw the truth. I saw it all. And it was all too late.
“You’re not the only who knows how to lie, Dex!”
And there it was.
The truth.
She loved me. She had lied. She loved me all this time.
She loved me, me.
And I ruined it.
She left into the icy night, her anchor bracelet ripped on the floor. She was gone out of my life, out of the show. I had everything I wanted in my hands, in my actual hands, and I destroyed it before it could even become anything. I crushed everything we already had. I drove the only relationship that meant anything to me into the ground and then buried it with six feet of dirt.
I collapsed to my knees, unable to come to terms with what I had done. At the precious thing I’d lost. It was more than missing a part of me. It was feeling like there was nothing left of me to exist in her absence.
When my knees didn’t feel low enough, I fell to my side and curled up on the floor.
When the floor still wasn’t low enough, I began to cry.
I remained that way, a mess of tears in the hallway, my hand clutching the remains of the bracelet, until Jenn returned from her night out. Even she took pity on me.
Anyone would have. What else can you feel toward a man who once held the world in his hands only to throw it all away?
You think, “How can he live with himself?”
Good question.
I’ll let you know.