Behind The Scenes

78. Hero

It's crazy.
She can't have decided this like that... she can't leave me before she knows if she's actually pregnant or not.
She said she doesn't want to break up, but this break will lead to that, I know. And deep down she knows it too. This is how it works in all relationships: they take a break, don't talk anymore, and break up.
Or maybe there is a tiny hope that we'll be different and be able to overcome another obstacle.
She sat on my lap and we are forehead to forehead again. She closes her eyes and I can't help but close them too, while the best moments come to my mind.
"You know..." she begins, whispering, but she stops.
"What?"
She shakes her head biting her lip and looks me in the eye. "Nothing."
I'm not too interested in what she wanted to say. My eyes are focused on her lips.
She approaches and closes her eyes slowly. She breathes my breath and our noses touch, our lips almost.
I want to kiss her, but I'm not going to take the first step, because if she wants to, she will. And she does.
She kisses me slowly, softly. Her tongue opens my lips gently and she takes hold of my mouth. This kiss is... beautiful, but hateful, because she is kissing me as if it were the last time.
When I put my hand through her hair, she suddenly stops kissing me. She manages to torture me in such a beautiful way that I don't even know I'm dying.
"I can't..." she says softly.
"Why'd you stop?" I ask her.
She takes a deep breath. "Because I can not..."
"It's so frustrating when you kiss me like it's going to be the last time."
She sighs. "I know. And I can't because it hurts both me and you."
"You can keep hurting me as long as you like, I don't care. You can break my heart into a thousand pieces, but I won't care anyway." I really mean it.
"Maybe yes..." she looks down at her, my hand still in her hair, on the back of her neck. She looks at me again. "But I don't want to hurt myself like this anymore."
I feel a stab in the chest, a void. My heart just shattered.
"It's not for you, no." Her voice breaks. "But for me. I... " she bursts into tears.
Although it is metaphorically bleeding, I hold her tightly to my chest. Her head resting on me, seeking comfort, is thorny, it makes me bleed even more.
"I need a break," she continues, sobbing.
I stroke her soft blonde hair, which smells of vanilla. "Are you sure you really want it?"
She nods firmly.
"All right..."
I say all right just because I love her, and I want her to be fine, to be happy. I'll think about me later.
"But you know that there is still that probability that you..."
"Yes," she interrupts me. "I know." She pauses and sniffles, still holding my chest. "I have to take a pregnancy test, ASAP."
"We'll go buy it tomorrow, okay?" I reassure her.
She nods again. She bursts into tears again.
"Shh..." I try to reassure her.
Nothing.
She is crying bitterly. I'm not as convinced as before that she really wants this break. I know I was wrong, earlier, to have doubted her, but the thing about forgetting the condom had happened too many times already and it was starting to seem strange to me.
"I love you, don't forget that," I can hear mutter.
"You don't need to remember how much I do, right?"
She shakes her head.
It's depressing... We love each other madly and yet we are 'taking a break' from I don't know what. You cannot take a break from love.
"We'll pretend," she says suddenly and breaks away from my embrace.
"What?"
"We'll pretend it's all right until we get home."
"Do you mean that I will smile at you and you will smile back in front of your parents?"
She nods yes. "But we don't have to kiss, or touch, otherwise it wouldn't make sense." And she sniffles again.
"Okay, okay. It will be excruciating, but that's okay. If you want it... "
As I said, I just want her to be happy. Or maybe I also want her to realize how stupid this thing is.
We are connected to each other, whether we want it or not. There is something between us that cannot be explained. Whenever I'm near her I feel like I'm the magnet and she's the iron. We are both strong and courageous, but I don't know if we'll be able to overcome such a gap, if this break will last. Either it will last forever or it will last for us to go back and forth. And this vortex in which we are immersed will suck us back to the bottom.
We will drown in passion, as in the love that we never had to force, because we were already drowning in it from the first moment.