Her face is pale under the neon signs as her lips tremor, like she wants to say something, anything, but the words can’t make it out.
The sheen of tears glosses over her eyes, shining with emotion she hasn’t let fall yet.
There’s no hope in them. Just a deep, quiet sadness that cuts deeper than any scream could.
She looks at me the way someone looks at a house they once lived in, something warm once, something safe once, knowing they can’t go back inside.
My hands are locked around the edge of the bar so tightly that the wood creaks.
I feel the tear slip down my cheek before I realize I’m crying.
My throat constricts, a strangled sob clawing its way up before I can stop it.
Pressing the heel of my hand against my lips, I fight myself to keep it together.
Because the second it escapes, the truth hits me harder than anything ever has.
I’m not losing just anyone.
I’m losing the woman I was supposed to spend the rest of my life loving.
Every muscle in my body is screaming to go over to her, to cross the room, to pull her out of his reach and take her somewhere he’ll never find.
But I stay rooted, because it isn’t my place.
Because she’s walking away with him. Because he’s touching her gently now, gentle enough that anyone watching would call it love. Because she’s letting him.
And because, deep down, I know what that look in her eyes means.
She’s not choosing him tonight because she wants to. She’s choosing him because she believes she has to.
Because she thinks the only way to keep the peace is to keep swallowing the hurt.
Because she thinks that if she leaves, everything will explode—her life, his temper, her following, the views, the fragile little world she’s built around pretending that everything is fine.
I watch the door close behind them, and all I can do is sit here, breathing through the gaping hole she left in my chest, knowing the only woman who ever felt like home just walked out that door.
And I let her.
reed
. . .
Steam still lingers in the bathroom after my shower. The mirror is fogged up, except for the streaks left by my hand. My reflection stares back at me; pale, hollow-eyed, water still dripping from my hair, with faint red marks on my shoulders from scrubbing too hard.
I stare at the scars running across my skin.
Faded lines, raised patches, the uneven map of what’s left. Every one of them tells a story I can’t recount without feeling the heat again; the crash of sound, the breath that wouldn’t come, the moment everything changed.
I trace them slowly, my fingertips ghosting over the rough spots. I hate that I still remember the pain, not just from that day but from every time I’ve looked in this mirror since.
There was a time I could stand here and see a man. Now all I see is what’s gone.
Brian’s stupid face flashes through my mind, Layla’s sunshine aura now hollowed into nothing. How she still left with him, leaving me to bleed in silence.
What killed me the most was how she looked at meright before they left, like she wanted to explain something but couldn’t.
I can still feel the burn of it in my chest.
