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“You said you needed space; I respected that,” she repeats. The tension in her body and breathing growing shallower are signs I recognise too well and I tense up.
“I’m a fucking asshole,” I tell her. “I hate myself for what I’ve done to you.”
“Why? Why did you do this to me on the day? You could’ve told me a week before, Liam… even a day….”
“I don’t know.”
Honey approaches me. She’s dressed in a blue, silk gown fastened around her waist, and I brace myself for anger, screaming, a slap. Instead she touches my cheek. “I know why. Because you’re still not sure what to do, if you were, you would’ve cancelled earlier. You had wedding day nerves. I still love you, and I understand if you were scared. We can take a step back, see how things go—”
“What?” I rip this woman’s heart out and humiliate her in front of the world, and she tells me she loves me? I move away. “Honey, no.”
“But if you don’t know why you walked away, you must still love me. We can figure things out, can’t we?” she asks.
No, no, no. This is worse. I want her to be the Honey who yells and screams, accuses me of not loving her and tells me she hates me. The woman I compared in my head to the calm, strong girl in Wales and who she didn’t measure up.
The next words to come out of my mouth sicken me—the one thing I should’ve said the first day the clarity hit. “I don’t love you, Honey.”
“You do, Liam, you’re just confused.”
Again, the wrong fucking reaction.Shit.I can’t treat her any worse than I have in the last two weeks, but what do I do? “No, I don’t. I’m sorry, this has to end.”
Honey wraps her arms around my waist and my anxiety over an imminent attack changes to one of despair as she rests her head against my chest. I don’t know what to do, how do I stop this? I feel nothing for this woman apart from guilt.
Guilt she’s playing on.Thisis the reason I didn’t end the wedding before the day arrived. This is therealreason I didn’t want to step through the doors today. I’m weakened by not wanting to hurt her and by guilt.
I grip Honey’s arms, and move her away. “Don’t do this.”
The tear-filled blue eyes meet mine again, pulling at my resolve, dragging me back to the lost girl I wanted to help months ago. “Please, Liam. I love you. Don’t leave me. I need you.”
There it is. Honey’s fear of abandonment; her need to accept love from wherever she can find it. I once tried to be that person, to help her fix this fucked up part of her mind but I failed. If Honey did love me, the affairs would never happen. She’d never throw the random accusations that I didn’t love her and that I was fucking groupies because she wasn’t good enough. One minute I’d be the love of her life, the next she’d scream poison and hatred. I accepted the behaviour because I wanted to help her change. All that happened is she dragged me into the deep water drowning her, and pulled me under too.
Honey doesn’t love, she needs. And what she needs could never come from me.
“I don’t love you,” I repeat. “I can’t make myself love you or pretend I do.”
She searches my face for a glimmer of emotion, but I’m locked down now, blocking her out. Allowing her in would end me right now. When Honey doesn’t see what she wants, she chooses one of her two usual reactions and crumples to the floor. The sobbing begins and she grips her hair, pulling hard.
I did this. I fucking did this and I want to feel nothing. I don’t want to need to comfort her and apologise; I don’t want to be the man who made things worse. But I am.
I add to this when I walk away from Honey, because if I stay the weaker, soft-hearted Liam who wants to fix the people around him will appear. And if he appears, I’ll end up back in a relationship which would kill that Liam for good.
