My stomach hollows out and I grab onto his wrist with both hands as I say, my body melting, “I forgive you.”
He, on the other hand, goes rigid. “What?”
That’s what I wanted to say to him. That’s what I’d decided this weekend.
That I’d tell him that.
And so I do, even though he’s gone all rigid, all unforgiving. “I-I forgive you. For everything.”
He studies my face with a gaze that has hardened, much like his body. “Everything.”
I was afraid before, to say it.
To actually say the words and make them real.
But I’m not afraid anymore.
I’m not afraid to tell him that I’ve forgiven him because it is the truth. It has been the truth for some time now. Even though he doesn’t look too happy about it. He doesn’t look like he wants to hear it.
I dig my nails into his wrist. “Yeah. I forgive you for breaking my heart two years ago. For lying to me. For using me. For breaking your promises to me and for choosing your vendetta against your dad over me. I forgive you for all that.”
This time his silence is much, much longer.
During which the muscle in his cheek beats like my own heart. It beats like it will rip out of his skin like my heart will rip out of my chest.
“Why?” he asks after a while, somehow with his finger still on my lip, still as tender as ever, so in contrast to his harsh demeanor.
“Because my heart doesn’t hurt anymore,” I whisper, staring into his pretty eyes. “Because ever since you broke it, my heart, two years ago, I’ve been in pain. I’ve been in so much pain, and that’s why I stole your car, to stop it. That’s why I asked you for closure the night when… when we had sex. For the last two years, all I’ve wanted was for the pain to stop. I just wanted my heart to stop hurting and it has. I don’t feel it anymore. The pain. It’s gone.”
“Why?” he asks again. “Why is it gone?”
I go up on my tiptoes to reach him because he looks so far away right now. “Because you took it away. You made it go away. I asked you to do it and you did.”
Isn’t it ironic though?
That the guy who gave me this pain is also the one who took it away. He’s the one who soothed it.
But it only seems to push him further away.
So much so that he breaks out of my hold. He takes his touch away from me and steps back.
The touch that he’d given after weeks, he takes it back in a matter of seconds and my knees feel weak without it.
My body goes cold. My legs tremble.
He stares at me with angry eyes, his stubbled jaw ticking. “And I’m assuming all this forgiveness is because of what I’m doing, is that correct? For driving you around, for bringing you groceries, for taking you to that useless fucking doctor. You think I’m doing this for your forgiveness?”
I don’t know how I can be so calm when he’s like this. Agitated and angry. Callous.
Old Callie would be freaking out. She’d be trembling and maybe even crying at his cold behavior. But I’m not that Callie anymore.
Because of him.
Because I’ve met the villain once and I’ve survived.
That’s what Tempest said and she was right.
I survived him. And I’m stronger now, a lot better for it.
