More pacing and more sobs. An awkward, painful silence. Our hearts are being torn in half, with the hope of ever being repaired off in the vast unsure distance before us.
After a few minutes, my tears stop enough for me to see that his anger has morphed somewhat into sadness. Bryan flops onto the couch and huffs a loud sigh.
I look over at him – his shoulders sag and his face sinks with pain. With his eyes searching the ceiling for some kind of escape, he whispers, “Why?”
His elbows fall to his knees and his head drops into his hands as he whispers “why” over and over again.
“I … I … don’t know. I’m sorry.” I stumble over my words unable to find any that will help to explain my motives.
“No!” he barks. “Tell me, now. Why? Was I not good enough?” The hurt that tramples across his face makes me cave and tell him everything.
“It was because of the text. And then you weren’t calling me. I wanted to come visit you, but you told me not to. I thought you had moved on.” I let the words race out of my mouth and hope to God that they make sense.
Huffing, he stares at me confusedly. “What text?”
“Courtney sent me a picture of you two kissing and I just figured you got back with her. And then you told me not to visit you and you were so distant … I just thought … well, I just thought you were done with me. “
“Done with you?” he seethes quietly, but his flippant sarcasm shines through. “I thought I’d never be done with you,” he adds sadly.
A beat later, his anger returns as he recalls the rest of my words. “Why the fuck would I get back with her? Especially after everything I told you about her! Hell, even if she wasn’t a stuck-up bitch, the fact that I have told you over and over again that I don’t want her … that I want you. I don’t fucking understand why you never believe me.”
“I don’t either, Bryan. I hate that part of me … that part that questions everything. That can only see me as worthless. I …” Crying sounds emerge as my words trail off.
“You are not worthless,” he says as he sits back down next to me. His words are a little softer than they were a few minutes ago, but he’s still distant and cold. “And I told you not to visit because my parents were splitting up. None of that had anything to do with you and me.”
“I know. I know. I wish I knew that then, but I know it now. Please believe me that I’m so sorry. I would do anything to take it back, but I can’t.”
“This isn’t just about the cheating, Melanie.” His words shock me to silence.
“What do you mean?” I manage to croak.
“You don’t trust me, Melanie. You never have, but what’s even more difficult to get past is that you don’t trust us. You don’t trust that what we have is enough for me. My God, it was enough. But no matter how many times I told you that, you never believed me.”
“No … I do believe in us. Please, Bryan. Give me a chance to prove it to you. Please, please, please.” I reach for his hand again and when he pulls away from me it’s like I’ve been punched in the gut.
“I can’t, Melanie. I can’t move past this.” He turns his face away from mine, but I grab his stubbled jaw and pull it back to me.
“Please. I’ll do anything. Please don’t leave me. Bryan, believe me. I’m sorry.” I’ve never been sorrier for anything in my entire life.
Bryan reaches up and pulls my hand from his face. When he looks in my eyes, I can see tears shimmering in his, just beneath the anger and pain that hover at the surface. “I can’t, Melanie. I need to be with a girl who loves herself as much as I do. I deserve to be with a girl who is secure enough with who she is that she doesn’t need my constant reassurances.” His hands clench into fists and his knuckles turn white under the pressure. “I can’t be with someone who doesn’t have enough faith in us and in herself to get through a rough patch. I’m sorry, Melanie, but I just can’t.”
And on his last words, he stands from the couch and picks my jacket up from the chair that he tossed it on when I walked in over an hour ago. As I turn to step into it, I realize that his small dining room table is romantically set for two. The take-out menu for Bella’s restaurant is out next to the phone and there are unlit candles everywhere. Bryan tracks my stare and shrugs his shoulders and mumbles, “I was going to surprise you with an early Valentine’s Day dinner.”
Any last hope I had of leaving here without being completely and utterly broken, have now been annihilated.
I reach for the knob and feel an icy blast slap me in the face as I open the door. I hear the jangle of Bryan’s car keys, but the thought of being next to him as he drives me home is more than I can bear.
I reach for the hand in which he’s holding his keys and stare up into his eyes. “No. I’ll walk.” He nods and drops his keys onto the small side table.
Stepping over the threshold, I look at him one last time as the words, “I’m sorry” get stuck in my throat.
Bryan looks at me with pain in his eyes as he says, “Goodbye, Melanie.”
I do nothing but stare numbly as he closes the door on me. My heart splinters into a million tiny fragments when I hear the lock click. He’s gone from my life forever and I know that I’ve been irrevocably changed by what just happened.
They say that when one door closes, another one opens, but I think they’re lying.
Part Two
Bandaged
11
“Melanie! Wake up, girl. You’re going to miss your midterm. Come on.” Peyton’s not-so-gentle wake-up call includes yelling in my ear and shaking me somewhat violently. “Let’s go, Melanie. If you don’t get your ass out of bed right now, I’m going to get the ice water … again.”
I lamely roll to my side and face her. Glaring at her from under my forearm,which is draped across my face, I give her the side-eye. “You wouldn’t.”
Her face lights up playfully. “Oh, but I would. Let’s go.”
Instead of getting out of bed, I roll back over and face the wall. Grumbling incoherent nonsense at Peyton’s craziness, I don’t even hear her leave the room.
But when the freezing cold water comes splashing down on me, I know that she’s returned. “What the freak! I can’t believe you just did that!” I screech as I jump out of my now drenched bed.
“Well, I did.” She stands with her hands on her hips sticking her tongue out at me. “I’ve had enough of this moping around and not-doing-shit business. You haven’t done much of anything these last six weeks and I can pretty much guarantee you that if I didn’t wake you up, you’d be missing another midterm.” She rolls her eyes at me as I stand before her wringing out my soaked pajama shirt.
“Fine. I’m up. Are you happy now?” I snap sarcastically.
“Thrilled, actually. Now get your ass out of here in the next ten minutes and I’ll be ecstatic,” she bites back as she starts tapping the face of her watch. When she stalks out of the room and closes the door behind her, I flip her off.
As I get ready for my last midterm before spring break, I think back over the last six weeks and realize that Peyton is not entirely wrong. I have been in a funk. Well, actually to call it a funk is quite an understatement. My grades have slipped. My attitude sucks. I’m angry most of the time, and when I’m not angry, I’m depressed. The real kicker is that the only person to be blamed for all of this is me.