“I still love you,” I said, needing her to know.
“I love you too.But it doesn’t matter.”
Something inside me split open.I love you too.But…like our love was only a footnote.I reached for the bottle of wine from behind her because I couldn’t reach for her and went to the couch.Her sobs faded into the walls, and all I could hear was the tick of the kitchen clock and the sound of everything we’d built coming apart.
Tomorrow, we would figure out the rest.
Tonight I wanted to forget.
I sat on the bed, a never-ending stream of tears falling down my face.This was not what I wanted, but he pushed me.I tried to keep it to myself, tried to swallow it down like I’d been doing, but he asked… and I broke.
A sob shook my body, and I buried my head in my pillow, afraid he would hear me.If he did, he’d come in to comfort me, and I didn’t deserve his comfort.He was right.I was walking away from us.I had to, though.If I didn’t, I’d only grow to resent him, and I didn’t want that.
I inhaled on a sob, forcing the tears to stop.My legs twitched, desperate for me to get up and go to the one person who could always dry the tears.My heart insisted I cooperate, but my brain, that damn organ, wouldn’t allow either to proceed.
You don’t want the same things anymore.
The thought was a whisper, but the impact was a scream.I ignored it for long enough, and I couldn’t anymore.
So instead of running out of this room and right to Wyatt, I curled into a ball, hugging his pillow close to my chest, and let the silence swallow me.
His scent clung to the pillowcase, cedar and soap and something that was just Wyatt, and my heart clenched, body shook.I breathed in, trying to fill the hollow places that were filling my soul, as if it could stitch me back together.
But all it did was remind me of what I was losing.
The laughter.The safety.My best friend.
We built a life together, layer by layer, and I was tearing it apart.And not because I didn’t love him, but because I was greedy.
I held his pillow tighter and whispered into the darkness, “I’m sorry.”
***
I woke up a couple of hours later.My eyes were sandpaper against my lids, and my heart didn’t just hurt; it was heavy and swollen, filled with the weight of every unspoken word, and every word I couldn’t take back.
My pillow was wet beneath my head, and I rolled over, not wanting to get up, not wanting to face the reality of my own creation.I hugged Wyatt’s pillow closer, his scent faint now, but enough to tighten my throat again.
I wanted to believe I had done the right thing.That walking away from the man I loved because we wanted different futures was brave.It was a hard decision, but the right one.But it didn’t feel right.All it felt like was loss.
A deep, soul-cutting loss.
And the worst part?
He hadn’t come after me.
Not that I blame him, but it was proof that we were really over.Eleven years down the drain.
I sat up, the room a disoriented black blur around me.My stomach clenched, and I pressed a hand to it.Nausea rolled inside me, and I swallowed, but it only made it worse.
My body jerked, and I leaped to my feet, running into the bathroom.I dropped to the floor in front of the toilet, and everything I had eaten last night came out.
Sweat dripped down my back as I flushed all the remnants away.I pushed off from the toilet, resting my back against the tub, my head on my knees.My eyes closed, and I took a deep breath.
“What the hell was that?”I whispered.
I listed everything in my head that I ate last night, but nothing could have caused this.I didn’t even drink that much.If I had, I could have blamed everything on the alcohol, but the only thing I had to blame was myself.
Nausea rolled through me again, and I dropped my head between my legs, taking deep breaths.This was the last freaking thing I needed.
