Breathless Behaviour

17

Heath

I stand outside my old bedroom door, fist raised to knock and wake her up but still in the air, centimeters away from the wood, doing nothing.

I stand outside, dressed and ready, almost six, late to my standards, already behind on work because I couldn't bring myself to knock and wake her up. My knuckles brushing constantly against the wood but only that, brushing, grazing, making no noise, something in my chest stopping me from doing so.

It's strange, this thing I've felt in my chest since yesterday, since she walked away from me, no words, no looks, nothing almost like that day I took her into town but unlike that time, it feels worse, ten times, a hundred times worse.

It feels like I fucked up and I never fuck up. It's not something I can afford, or even want to do yet it's all I can think about.

I stayed up most of the night with my thoughts and thoughts of a girl I want nothing more than to get away from but can't seem to, even when she's not around. Each word and blink of hers running through my head, from the moment I saw her to mere hours ago when she stood so close to me, wrist in my hand, her scent still in my lungs and her name lingering on my lips.

Alexandra

How could a name sound like too much but at the same time, like not enough? Like it could both make you drown but give you air? Kill you but make you live?

Alexandra

Her name threatens to spill from my lips as I look at the smooth wood in front of me but I hold it hostage, my fist balled, tight, unable to knock even when I need to.

I need to knock, I need to draw her out of her sleep because she is incapable of doing it by herself. I need to wake her up and tell her to hurry, to have her come down for breakfast but I can't.

It's guilt I feel in my chest. Needling it's way into my system for the way I'm treating her, talking to her but I can't help it, I can't stop it or maybe I can but I refuse to.

I've been down this path before, with a woman not so different from her and all it led me to was hearing moans of pleasure and a name that wasn't mine coming from the same door I now stood in front of.

I know it's not the same. Alexandra is nothing to me- this is so different from that day I found out about all her lies and schemes- that woman is long gone and there's silence yet it doesn't feel any different and I don't know what is worse.

The silence or the memories that sometimes cut deeper than any weapon could ever do.

Maybe I didn't love her but it doesn't sting any less.

Of course he does, after all he doesn't even spend more than an hour with his kids. All he does is work and go to meetings... He doesn't know me, he tells you what he believes and hears and you assume... you choose to believe the man who only pays for my credit cards. Who is as absent as my mother.

I hadn't ever asked Peter about his parenting skills or his kids. I had assumed that he'd be better than his father who had chucked him here years ago. I had thought that he wouldn't make the same mistake his father had done yet with the words his daughter had spewed out, I no longer knew what to think or if I should think at all.