How Long Will I Love You?

Chapter 36 - How Long Will I Love You? (Part 1)

"Stay away from her," he said, with venom in his voice.

That's when Laura realized that she really didn't like him. At all. "That's not your choice to make." She started walking away from him but he grabbed her arm so tightly it hurt. "Let go of me," she said with the same hatred in her voice.

He let go of her arm but not before he could pull her to face him. "You don't deserve her."

Laura smirked, "And you do?"

"I know I deserve her more than you do. I have never hurt her the whole time we were together. I cared for her, gave her everything she wanted, needed. I showed her how she should be loved. I became the man she deserved, someone not even close to the partner you were when you were with her."

"She loves me more than she had ever loved you."

"Yes. But she loved you more than she should have. And I love her more than you ever did."

"You seem pretty confident about that, big guy." This time she walked away before she could reach her the second time. She decided she wouldn't let him ruin her day. But she stopped in her tracks when he spoke again.

"Then tell me why you left her. If you really loved her as much as you're trying to imply, why would you leave her? Oh I know. Because you were such a selfish bitch who would rather hurt her than have yourself be hurt. You chose your own safety over her happiness. You decided to leave when things got tough because you didn't love her enough to stay for her. Now tell me how much you really deserve her more than any other person in this world?"

She didn't let him say anything else after those words. Because at that time, everything he had said was enough and she had already accepted that he was right. It was actually funny how someone she should've hated made her crumble just through his little speech. She shouldn't have believed him. He probably hated her so much to have said those things and she shouldn't have let him affect her in any way. But his words had stung because she knew that they were all true. She knew she loved Taylor before but she still hurt her. Who could say she wouldn't do it again this time?

So even if it killed her, she went to work that day and tried to forget everything she had planned to do. She ignored every loss of breath she felt whenever she was around Taylor and had to act like nothing happened. She let every pain in her chest eat the life away from her whenever she would remember what she had talked about with Pete, about how she was gonna spend each day for the rest of her life without the woman she loved more than anyone else in the world.

And then each of those days led to this moment, to the now where she had to make a decision, something she would and should never change again, something she should never run away from again. It made her feel exhausted just thinking about it.

And she just didn't know what to do anymore.

-o-o-o-

Taylor did not wake up until almost 12 hours later. When she did, she cursed herself for her little stunt last night of trying to drown all her sorrows away. She knew it was pure bullshit and it wouldn't take anything away and she still did it anyway. Now she was paying for it.

She could not count the number of times she had woken up with a raging hangover but this one was probably going to take the trophy for worst hangover ever because she couldn't even breathe without feeling like her brains was gonna explode out of her head. She cursed herself again when she attempted to get out of bed to get some aspirin to help her with her headache.