"Cara, I have been a very lost person - for a very long time, and you saw that and it was terrifying."
I didn't say anything. I kept my eyes closed, petrified of what I might see.
"But nothing was more terrifying to me than the fact that you loved me despite that. I ruined this, and I can't apologise enough. I'll never be able to right what I did, and I wish that I could - but those songs your wrote, they're yours. I don't want to take anymore from you than I already have. I want to give you everything that you deserve-"
"Harry." I interrupted him. "I thought you might be dead. I lay awake for hours wondering if the man that I loved was leaving me, on this earth, all alone - forever."
He rushed to me then and held me to him. I couldn't fight it. I loved someone else now, but I had loved this man so much that I let him break my heart. And I knew that I'd do it again.
"You were my whole world. You were my lifeline, and I'm so sorry - that's too much pressure to put on one person, but I genuinely don't think I'd be here if it weren't for you." We smiled through our tear streaked faces.
We sat on the sofa, facing each other, Harry made us tea and we listened to his album again. He held my hand sometimes, squeezed it at certain lyrics. It made me smile.
The silence crept in, a comfortable one. I turned to him. Looked him in the eye and told him what he deserved to hear.
"I did love you Harry. I really did."
The truth.
"I know you think I loved him more, or that I loved him too." I inhaled deeply, worried I was betraying T by saying all of this.
"But I think, I think," I began again, nervous, "for a while - when I was with you, the way only we were together, I really did only love you."
Harry stared ahead at his lap. "Do you think if I hadn't been pushing you away, you would've stayed."
It was my turn to sit in a silent thought. We sat, sharing a dream - one we could've had, one only one of us wanted now.
"Probably." I sighed. "But I don't think what would've been and what could've been, helps anything. Because look at where we are now." I smiled, a small one, but it was there nonetheless.
His face had regret etched into it. I squeezed his hand. "I think, I still love you Cara." He spoke clearly, with a strength and bravery of clarity in his voice.
I got up and he did too. I hugged him, and he held me tightly.
"You know, I'm always going to care about you Harry. You gave me some of the best memories, some of my favourite moments." I kissed his cheek goodbye.
His hands lingered on my arms and he found my hands, entwining our fingers together.
"I don't want to live a life without you in it." I pulled him into it, needing him to understand, begging him to realise how much he meant to me.
"Thank you." He whispered, smiling. I just smiled back at him before I walked away.
Once I got to the corner of his block I fell against a wall and called an uber. My legs too weak to walk.
I tried calling T again but still, nothing. Every time I reached his dial tone it left my stomach more knotted.
This time, I wasn't going to do this again. I couldn't keep doing this. Who leaves like that? If you love someone, you stick with them - you fight for them, you work through it - together. That is love, that is true love.
The car pulled up outside of Timothée's, I opened the door with my set of keys, running in to grab the rest of my clothes. I was done with the hide and seek game, he was my boyfriend for gods sake. You don't just run out on someone like that.
I ran into his bedroom, stuffing anything in eyesight that looked like it was mine. My jumpers, underwear, toiletries - I wanted him to come back and realise what he had done.
"Fuck!" I yelled, as I turned around to see him in the doorway, his eyes black like the deepest depths of the ocean.
He didn't say anything and I pushed past him, my bag undone, dropping pieces of me around the floor of his apartment.
"Cara!" He yelled at me, when I wouldn't look at him.
"What the fuck do you want from me?" I shouted back.
"Can you just sit down for christs' sake?" He asked running a hand through his hair, a threadbare sweater and old jeans on. The cuffs of his sleeves were chewed and torn up.
I scoffed at him. His audacity.
"Why would I do that?" I smirked. Delirious with anger. "So you can leave for another three days and I can stay here like a fucking idiot?" My voice was scatty like an out of tune piano, it represented how I felt perfectly - I was all over the fucking place. I was in disarray.
"I had to sort some things out Cara. Please I didn't want to ruin the surprise." I threw my hands up in disbelief.
"Fuck you!" I screamed. I got up and made my way over to him. "Do you think anything, anything in this fucking world is worth more to me than knowing you're okay? Anything?"
I was laughing, I was so infuriated I was laughing hysterically.
He tried to stop me from walking away by pulling me to him. I tried to wriggle out of his embrace, but his stance remained secure. I gave up on fighting him like a kid, he stroked my hair as I cried into his chest, pushing him occasionally.
"I was so fucking worried. Don't ever ever do that to me again."
He hushed me like a child. "Okay, okay - I'm sorry, but it's sort of hard to call when you're in a plane cheríe."
"I hate you so much." I muttered, still crying as he held me to him by the back of my neck. I grabbed his face and crashed his lips to mine.
I kept crying. He kept holding me.
"Where did you go?" I asked, as he pulled back to brush my tears away, with the cuff of his jumper.
"Well there were a few things I had to pick up and there was something I had to do."
I rolled my eyes at him and broke away from him. "You're so fucking vague I hate you. Why didn't you take me with you?" I asked but it just sounded like I was pleading.
"I will next time, I'm sorry." He spoke softly. Pulling me back to him. He lifted me up like I weighed nothing, carrying me back to bed.
"Promise you'll be here when I wake up." I whispered before we turned on Rebel Without A Cause.
"That's the plan Cara, for the rest of our lives." I whacked him on the arm.
"You say that, but you just pulled a disappearing act on me." I reminded him.
He just kissed me gently. "You'll see." He whispered against my lips. Content with the arms of my lover holding me once more, I let him win.
