I shake my head. “I can’t believe you.”
“This is all because of him!”
“Don’t blame him for your immaturity.”
He raises his voice. “Why do you always defend him? What about me? He’s a grown man and still picks fights with me!”
“Please don’t start. You know I love you both equally. I’m not defending him more than you.” I sigh, fed up with this incessant argument. “I told him countless times to stop it. I’m not taking his side.”
“Yes, you are! Every time something happens you defend him. No matter what shitty things he does, you always justify his behavior.” He stomps his foot. “He literally made a snarky comment about me earlier and you let it go!”
“Are you kidding me? Did you not hear me tell him to cut it out?”
“As if that’d change anything!” he shouts. “I know that there’s something between you. I- I don’t know what the hell it is, but you always have that weird look when you look at him and you’re not behaving normally with each other, and I hate it.”
“This isn’t something you and I should talk about.” I face the table and dump my wallet on the oak. “It’s none of your business.”
“Itismy business! You’re so obnubilated by him that you completely forget me!”
I spin around, outraged. “That’s not true. I care about you and I’m always thinking about you. I could never forget you.”
“No, you’re always thinking abouthim,” he utters, eyes moist.
I slam my palm on the table. “Actually, I’m worried about more important things than Jason. I worry about our future and expenses. I worry about work and school. I worry about your departure. I’m not as free as you think I am.”
“Yeah, I know that you work hard but that’s not the point.”
“Then what’s your point?”
“You don’t love me as much as you love him!” he shouts, gesticulating aggressively. “You’ll eventually replace me with him, won’t you?”
“Do you know what I’ve sacrificed to get you here? Do you have a clue what I had to do for you? How I had to throw myself into the den of the lion and throw my dignity and pride out of the window?!” I raise my voice, taking a step closer to him. “You have no idea what I did. I’m not saying that you’re a burden so don’t even start. I would do it all over again if it means protecting you but you dismissing this is just fucking upsetting.”
I hold back from throwing everything I want to actually say in his face. I want to scream about how he’s replacingmeand that he has no right to argue about this.
But I don’t.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about here but if you think your sacrifices show how much you love me, then you’re dead wrong.”
“I refuse to keep talking about this. We’re not getting anywhere.” I walk away, needing to get out of this room suffocating me minute after minute. “If my actions up till now couldn’t prove how much I care about you then I don’t know what will.”
Still standing behind me, he speaks up again, cutting me with his words. “You sacrifice yourself because you don’t valueyourselfenough, not because youloveme.”
The inconceivable fact that he dares to throw that in my face shatters my heart into a million tiny fragments of hidden pain and a truth I’ll never be able to admit.
“What?”
He pulls his lips into a thin line, clenching his fists at his sides and avoiding my gaze.
I can’t breathe, can’t turn around, can’t look at him for fear of falling apart right here and now. “I can’t be here.”
So, I stride for the door and slam it behind me. A mixture of fury and hurt spirals out of control in my lungs, clouding the space and choking me like cotton absorbing a thick liquid.
I have to get away from here. As far as I can. If even Visha thinks that I hate myself and don’t love him, then who else must’ve thought the same? What does that say about me? What kind of repugnant person am I that I’m so incapable of loving someone how they deserve to?
I run and keep running through the bustling streets. I crash into countless people but can’t seem to utter an apology and merely keep running for what feels like an eternity.
I flee from home. From my past and my future. From the mistakes I made. From what I am and what I refuse to see. From whom I am and have no other choice but to accept.
