u n r e q u i t e d • b o o k o n e ✓

five

"Tell me, tell me how you found her again. Tell me why she broke your heart. Tell me so I can let you go. So I can let her have you."

You hadn't said a word. You hadn't said a word because you knew that everything you did was wrong.

"Thee−"

"No! You've already hurt me enough. Telling me the truth can't do as much damage as you've already done," I seethed through clenched teeth.

My fists were aching to collide with your gut. I wasn't that type of person though. Harming you wouldn't make my pain go away.

"I don't want to let you go."

"You tell me you love her. So if you love her then you would."

"It's not that easy..." you wavered.

"Oh? I beg to differ," I laughed obnoxiously.

You sent me a pointed look and opened your mouth.

"I first met her in eighth grade. We were forced to work on an english project together and at first I didn't like her. She was a loud mouth, always speaking her mind without any thought, but she−" You paused and searched into my eyes. As if questioning if you should be talking about her to me.

I beckoned you to continue.

"She was beautiful, okay? More beautiful than my poetry."

More beautiful than me.

"We became friends after our project. Nothing more than that. We liked each other. We both knew it but did nothing about it. Our love was silent and never sought after. Senior year we lost contact. I went off to college and she to art school. I sent her poetry. She told me to stop. I never did. I kept writing to her."

"Then what?" I asked when you stopped.

"God, this is hard. I—I was in my dorm room working on my human rights essay when I heard the sound of paper sliding against the carpet underneath my dorm room door. I walked over and bent down to investigate what it was. It was the poems I sent her. All of them. There was a sticky note attached to the back of the last one I sent. Scribbled on it was, I'm glad you never stopped sending me poetry. I yanked open the door and she was there. Smiling. She told me she had quit school to come for me. That's how it started Theena, you happy?"

I ignored your snarky remark. You didn't have a right to get irritated with me. You never had the right and you never will.

"Did she leave you?"

Maybe that had been his early karma.

"She left me exactly one year later. She cheated on me. She was so guilty, so damn guilty that she wanted to die. I told her it was okay. She got mad. She questioned how I wasn't angry. She wanted me to be angry. She wanted to have a reason to leave me. She did either way though. We had an apartment together. She packed all of her stuff and was gone without a trace. Months later that's...." you trailed.

"That's when you met me," I finished, disgusted all over again. "So then, tell me how you're with her again? Tell me how that concept worked?"

"I−" he frowned. "Two weeks after me and you started dating she called me. She called me and told me that she was sorry. I wanted her back. I always would, but I was so angry, and you, you were there for me. And when I looked at you I was happy. I saw the world again."

There was this small light inside my heart that warmed up upon hearing those words, but I was no longer going to succumb to that light.

"I told her I was seeing someone. She broke into sobs, the sounds broke my heart. She never contacted me again after that. It was as if she dropped off the face of the earth. For a long time I never thought about her once." His shoulders dropped. "It was two years later when I was sitting at the cafe a couple of blocks away from here and saw that I had gotten a voice mail. It was from her, she was drunk. She was telling me things. Things that I wished I didn't hear. She had told me that it was my fault."

I leaned back, lips quivering. I didn't want to hear the rest.

"It was my fault that she gave our baby to a different family. The baby wasn't the other guy's either, and I know because he looks just like me. Anyways, she told me that it was my fault for not sending her any more poems," he murmured, "So I called her. Things began to unfold from there. I planned for us to meet. At first she didn't want to, but she then agreed. She told me she was sorry."

I bit my tongue as best as I could, but I couldn't hold it back. "There's more, tell me the rest."

"W—We got to visit our son. His parents... they're really good people. He's two years old. Almost three. He's beautiful. Truly. His name is Nicholas. Theena, I need you to know that I'm really sorry."

I put my hand to my mouth and let out a choked sob, one that I had been trying to keep at bay. The anger I had so terribly wanted to unleash on him was finally going to show.

"No. Get. Out. You're terrible! You're terrible! You're terrible for not telling me! I'll let you go, but I can't promise that I'll live through the night!"