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“Is it because of…him?”
I didn’t answer immediately, and his anger flared.
“Button, please don’t lie to me. Did he give you colors? Is he the reason that you won’t be with me?”
I looked up at the blue sky and sighed. My eyes watered. I pictured Parker’s blue eyes and the way they shined. The logic in my brain and the feelings in my heart agreed for once and knew the real, truthful answer. But there was also no truth to Parker being the barrier keeping us apart. Just like Erik, he was leaving.
“He’s leaving at the end of the week.”
“So, it is him. You’re screwing him.”
“I’m not screwing him.”
“The Blake I knew wasn’t a liar!” he screamed.
“I’m not lying!” I yelled back.
Nathaniel and Parker heard my scream and perked up their heads. Parker almost got up, but Nathaniel stopped him, shoving him back onto the couch. I was done playing defense. This needed to end, and it needed to end now.
“You know,” I tried to calm my quivering voice. “There was a time when I thought you and I would get married and live a fairytale happily ever after. In fact, I believed that most of my life. We were what movies were based on. A pair of best friends who grew up together in a small town, whose parents were best friends, and who were destined for each other. But the moment I found success and started having an identity and something I loved outside of my life with you, you resented me for it. You became cold and distant every time I was excited about work. You guilted me for going on business trips that were the building blocks of the career I wanted. You accosted me when I was selected for the promotion over you and told me I didn’t deserve it. I can’t be with you, Erik. You don’t support nor respect me.”
“I do respect and support you, Button! I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I said things I didn’t mean that night. Please…forgive me.”
He reached for my hand, and I let him. This time, I knew it would be the last time I would feel his skin against mine.
“Do you remember the night we broke up?” I asked, his thumb caressing the top of my hand. “You accused me of abandoning our dreams when I tried my hardest to salvage them, just in a new place. All I wanted was for us to take a leap of faith together. But you refused. Instead, you wanted me to abandon the career that I loved. You were so angry after we fought that you didn’t even come to say goodbye.”
“This job changed you, Button. I missed the girl I grew up with.”
“This job didn’t change me. I grew up. I grew into my own person. I didn’t need you anymore, but I certainly wanted you. Yet, you couldn’t understand that. You said a lot of really hurtful things that day, Erik. Those things don’t just disappear because you say you didn’t mean them. I’m sorry, but that’s not how it works. As much as I’ve debated a future for us over the last three months, I can’t.”
“Please, Button. There’s so much history between us. You can’t just be so willing to forget it.”
“I don’t intend to,” I sniffled, trying to keep the tears at bay. “I will never forget anything about you. I will never forget everything I learned from and with you. We learned how to ride bikes together, and you learned how bad at balancing I was. I learned to love with you. You helped me through my parents’ divorce, through my first heartbreak, through my first panic attack. We learned to compromise when we moved in together. But I also learned that I need more. I need someone who supports me and doesn’t let anger speak for them. I need someone who doesn’t guilt me for pouring myself into my job. All the history between us doesn’t make up for the fact that you are not that man.”
I stared into his dark eyes and knew he was holding back tears. Even if, by some unlikely and unfair twist of fate, the time we had spent together over the last few months had convinced my heart to see blue, I knew I couldn’t choose him.
I had grown a lot over our time apart, and time away allowed me to see the toxicity of our relationship. He robbed me of a lot of happiness and peace and replaced it with guilt and pain. After leaving him, I promised myself I would never be fooled into thinking I was happy again when I wasn’t. That is what I would be doing if I went back to him.
I would be fooling myself into happiness with help from past memories. I would be trapped in a cycle of yesterday promising a better tomorrow.
“I’ve loved you since we were kids, Button. But I see that means nothing to you anymore.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I will always love you. I just don’t love you the way you want me to. At one point, your love was all that meant anything to me. At one point, my life with you was everything to me. But a lot has happened to show me that’s not the future I want. I will not stand here and let you guilt me into trying to love you again. A lot has changed, and I would rather live in a world without color than in one with you.”
My heart broke as I uttered the words that I knew I meant. I was no longer ten-year-old Blake, who depended on her best friend for everything. Fifteen-year-old Blake, who held Erik on a pedestal, had left me long ago. Twenty-two-year-old Blake, who thought she loved Erik more than life itself and would have done anything for him, was gone.
Twenty-eight-year-old Blake knew and accepted that things were different. Whatever spark had burned brightly between us had burnt out, and I had no intention of relighting it.
I pulled out the bracelet he gave me out of my pocket. I couldn’t put it on this morning, but I couldn’t leave it behind. He looked at my hand quietly as I pressed the bracelet to his palm.
“Please prepare to implement your idea for the campaign,” I transitioned back into the protection of work mode. “Amelia decided to go with your plan. Congratulations. I’m going home. Call me if the building burns down. Otherwise, I trust you can all handle everything until tomorrow.”
Erik stared at me. The Blake he once knew was gone.
“If you love and respect me as much as you say you do, you’ll do me a favor of keeping this to yourself. I’ll pretend this never happened, and we’ll continue working as we were. I respect you as a colleague. Nothing more.”
“Blake…” Erik whispered as I turned and walked away.
