Hate You - LN

25

Sunlight streaks through a small crack in the blinds in my hotel room. My clothes still lay on the floor, dishevelled from me throwing them off somewhere in the process of all that happened last night. My suitcase lays open, spilling all of my clothes out over the thin carpet flooring. Minus one of my t-shirts since to the best of my knowledge Dev still had it. I study the smooth ceiling and sunken pot lights as I lay on top of the crumpled and messy bedsheets and my eyes burn like they have all but dried out.

Devin left back to Monaco early this morning. I heard her get up, and shuffle around and then I heard the door open and close. But I couldn't bring myself to get up and see her off. I couldn't even bring myself to ask her to stay in my bed last night, not go to hers. Something in my head clicked into place last night that had rendered me useless. Something my heart had known all along and because of it, I haven't slept a minute since she walked out that door wearing my t-shirt.

The realization had hit me like I'd crashed into the wall all over again in Abu Dhabi. It had shattered the protective wall I'd built around myself since she left. Splintered my defences to pieces.

I'm still in love with Devin, and I sure as hell don't hate her.

All the disgusting things I've been calling her, I might as well have just been saying those things into a mirror.

I am the slut who's been sleeping around since she walked out on me. Not her.

I'm the scared one. I'm terrified that if I let myself feel all those emotions I felt for her four years ago I might be torn to more pieces than I could ever hope to put back together. But she's not scared.

And I'm the one who's been beating themselves up for four years because I thought something was wrong with me. And maybe there is, but something physically had happened to Devin. And while I have been brooding over a broken soul for four years she was healing from something of an entirely different category of nightmare.

I've been so blind, so ignorant and selfish.

And I'd let the woman I love walk out of my room last night as if she was just another hookup.

Last night Devin had opened up to me. In some way. She let me touch her, she didn't flinch when I grabbed her hips and ran my fingers over the scar on her hip. She didn't push me away she begged me to touch her, to be close to her.

And I'd sat there and done nothing but watch her leave.

Last night all I wanted was to be close to her. I'd been jealous and I'd run with the feeling. But Devin, I never expected her to want me. I didn't expect her to want anything from me but a safe ride home.

No, Devin isn't afraid.

Last night I looked at that scar on her hip. How the raised red line has little scars all around it from stitches. I'd seen the small one on her ribs too. Touched it. I'd held her and touched those sore spots and she'd never flinched. Never pulled away.

Devin isn't the scared one. I'm the terrified one.

A twisting familiar feeling flooded my body and for the first time since I'd layed down on this bed I moved to fling myself off the bed. My muscles, especially my shoulder, screamed in agonizing protest but the need to find the bathroom toilet overwhelmed the feeling.

Flinging myself out of my room I crash through the bathroom door and hold my head over the toilet. Nothing happens, I just crouch, frozen.

And then I realize tears are careening down my cheeks like an overflowing river. A sob wracks my throat, my stomach still twisting and I don't dare pull away from the cold tiles that crisscross the bathroom floor.