“You should have kissed me,” I sigh.
He sighs back. “You’re right.”
His refusal to kiss me on my eighteenth birthday set the entire chain of events in motion. Our decisions rolled over at our feet like dominoes, scarring us both.
Such a simple demand, but his eyes popped up as if asked the most preposterous thing. I stormed away, needing a moment to collect myself, when someone snatched me and then everything turned black.
“Maybe that’s the problem. Your refusing what you want is what always messes us up.”
He turns, narrowing his eyes at me. “Really, Dahlia?”
The past drags me deeper into its dark web, slowly poisoning me.
I stab a finger at him. “You refused to kiss me but ended up fucking me.”
He gnashes his teeth. “I had to.”
“Sure,” I mumble. “You didn’t enjoy it at all.”
“Dahlia.” My name drops between us like a rattlesnake ready to attack. He’s losing his composure. And I might check my mental stability because I say one thing and do the next.
Sulking, I cross my arms over my chest and whisper, “You did.”
He stares out the windshield as if it’s a damn target he’d like to eradicate. “Have the last fucking word. Tell yourself whatever you need to make it bearable.”
“So, you wouldn’t have touched me if that hadn’t happened?” I ask breathlessly.
I know if the answer isn’t yes, my heart will dislocate from my chest, and I will never truly recover. That would be the end of hope.
He takes his time, every second threatening to sever my heartstrings like the death Reaper waiting to collect his newest victim. I plead with him in my head not to lie.
“No.”
No. No. No. One word. Two letters spin in my head, tearing apart everything until nothing fits anymore. A part of me always knew that, but I ignored the truth to keep dreaming. With time, he would feel the same and desire me. The alignment is all wrong while I desperately try to squeeze the jumbled pieces together into a familiar map to make it through the ordeal.
I open my mouth to call him a liar, to shout at him to take that back, but no words come out. The pain is too acute. My throat clamps up, my vocal cords weld together. I never want to speak again, but grieve for my entire existence.
He wants silence. Then, silence is what I will give him.
He wants solitude. Then, solitude is what I will offer him.
His demons can have him. I set him free. Release him from that sacred promise.
And I need distance. Distance from this cruel man, who swore to always protect me physically. Right, becauseemotionally, he just blew my heart into a hundred pieces, shredding me.
“You win,” I whisper, embracing the pain swallowing me whole.
Strangely, these are not the last words I wanted to be spoken between us, but they are.
A muscle ticks in his jaw, hard enough that I hear something crack.
I am deaf to his torment—too far gone down the vortex of mine to hear anything other than the shallow beats of my heart. I fold my knees to my chest, cuddling myself together, afraid my chest might split open, and my heart will roll out and bleed on the floor of my new car. The car he gifted me only a few hours ago.
What’s the prize for heartbreak? A Porsche surely isn’t. That I am certain of.
For someone who has desperately craved moments alone with him, I breathe a sigh of relief when he brings me home.
“Dahlia,” he calls my name, but his pleas can’t reach me. He can’t speak to my heart anymore because I no longer have one. He stomped all over it with that ‘No’ that might as well be the punch that sent it into cardiac arrest.
