She takes advantage of my momentary weakness to break away from my grasp. She takes a few steps back and looks at me. Her eyes are full of unbearable pain. Resentment, hurt pride.
Hate.
She hates me.
“Why dig into it? What were you looking for? You wanted to know more about it?”
“Yes. Fuck yes, Riley!” I yell, also exhausted. “I wanted to know everything because a part of me knew you would never tell me.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“That’s not it…”
“Then what?” she asks, determined.
By this point, she’s not afraid of anything.
Not even the truth.
“I wanted to know what happened to him. I wanted to find him.”,
“Why?” she asks, but I’m confident she’s already reached the answer in her head.
“I wanted to be sure that he would never hurt you again. He…would never touch you again.”
She brings her hand to her mouth in horror.
“What were you going to do?” she says.
In her voice I feel the accusation, the doubt.
The end.
“I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.”
Riley sits back down on the stool.
“You would be capable of—”
“You have no idea what I would be willing to do for you,” I tell her with my chest ablaze.
“Are you crazy? How could you even consider something like that?”
“Don’t you get it?! I can’t get those images out of my head, your face, the blood, the bruises…I can’t bear it! I can’t imagine what you…” I cut myself short.
I’ve said the worst thing I could possibly say.
The silence falls over us.
The pain falls on us.
The end falls on us.
“I knew that you wouldn’t have done it,” she says, her voice distant. “I always knew it.”
I see it. I feel it.
Her heart.
In a million pieces.
