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Or maybe it’s me who’s not seeing. Who’s always ignored what I am to him because I’ve been so blinded by what he is to me.
Maybe it’s me who’s not listening.
“Say it again James. Tell me you don’t love me. I need to hear it.”
“Katie, please. Hurting you is the last thing I want to do. Let’s just… take a step back, okay? I’ll call you in a couple of weeks and we can sort this all out. Space. I think that’s what we need. Just a little distance.”
“Say it!” I yell. “Tell me again.”
More silence, and then he says. “I don’t love you Kate. And I never will. There’s no us, okay? Not like that.”
The sob I’d been holding in my throat finally loosens, but so do my shoulders and my chest and every muscle in my body I didn’t realize I’d been tensing. It’s like a weight’s been lifted off me, one that had been crushing and suffocating me for almost a decade.
He doesn’t love me.
And he never will. And maybe I have to believe that. Maybe that’s what I needed to hear after all these years. For him to tell me that I’m not what he wants, that I’ve been nothing more to him than a friendship, a muse, a distraction, someone to pull him through all the dark. Someone to help him feel because he has no idea how.
Feel,not love. Never love.
This has never been love. Not to him.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. And I mean it, because he’s finally said it and I can finally let him go. “We have to be done James, okay? No friendship, no weekends, no phone calls or texts. If I let you go, you need to let me go too.”
“Katie—"
“It’s cruel. It really is. I’ve loved you since we were fifteen and I think you know that. I think you’ve always known that, and it makes it easy for you to come in and out of my life. But if you keep calling, I’ll keep answering. If we’re really friends, if that’s really what I am to you, if you actually care about me in any way, then I need you to let me end it. Please.”
Another heavy silence. It’s long, so long I wonder if he’s still there, if he’s finally fallen into a drunken sleep and maybe he won’t remember any of this. But then he speaks, his voice deep and quiet and colder than it’s ever sounded.
“Okay Kate. If that’s what you want, then we’re done. I’ll lose your number and you’ll never have to see me again. If that’s what you want,” he adds.
I don’t hesitate to respond, but I can feel my heart breaking, because part of me wanted him to fight. Part of me wanted him to realize that he was about to lose me, and that he needed to fight for me if he wanted to keep me.
James doesn’t want to keep me. He doesn’t want to fight for me. He doesn’t love me.
“Is it. Goodbye James.”
Heart wrenching. Soul crushing. There’s a void, an empty space, a colourless canvas of cold, black paint covering up all my light, and he’s the one with the goddamn paintbrush.
James doesn’t love me.
It’s 4 am and I’m falling to fucking pieces.
Part II: James
6
It’s2amandI’m flying high.
So high, that I almost forget about the woman bouncing on my dick. Almost. She’s very… noisy, and so I can’t really fully drown her out. Not like there’s anything wrong with her. She’s pretty, good tits, enthusiastic. She’s a distraction. An experience. Something to paint about the next time I get myself in front of a blank canvas or a brick wall. Or maybe not. There’d be nothing much to say about this, I guess, other than all this noise.
Guess I never really noticed the noises someone makes when they’re fucking. Or maybe I did but it’s the first time it’s irritated me.
Something pokes at my mind.
Kate.
Sometimes the noises she made were a little like this—loud and breathy. But I remember liking those. I remember liking every noise she made, especially when I was the one pulling them from her mouth. Her noises were good noises.
