Forces of Nature { A Novelette }

{ 1 | Overcast }

"I told you no! It's over. Let it go."

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It had been almost three weeks since Winston had left, and Karima had yet to fully get over the fact he was actually gone. His things had been packed almost instantaneously, as though it had been some premeditated attack on her emotions. Which wasn't possible, right? There was no way she'd missed the warning signs for this. He'd been her everything. Her everything. And she... she had thought she was his everything, too.

Apparently human emotions were fickler than she'd ever thought imaginable.

The apartment seemed cold, and though she walked the halls without socks on, she felt oddly detached from it. Her feet grazed the ground with each step as she tried to reconnect herself to what was now her reality. Her reality: she was alone. Winston had made it abundantly clear that he was gone, and this time for good. He'd left before, on occasions where he'd gotten angry. But he'd always come back. She would stay awake pacing the same bedroom she found herself in front of now.

She could see him standing there now, picturesque in his masculine glory, holding her and whispering sweet lies into her hair.

"It's alright, Kari. I'll always come back. I always do."

"We're not going to lose each other over this."

"I promise you that no matter what, you'll always be able to come home to my arms."

"It's okay to cry."

What beautiful lies they had been, too. Karima had believed every poison word that had dripped from his lips. And yet... even now, she was in denial. His presence couldn't truly be gone, could it? Shuffling her way from the bedroom she paced back to the foyer, where she stood silently in the main hall. Any minute now, she told herself, the newly painted door would swing open and Winston would come rushing in, arms open wide and tears on his cheeks.

He'd sweep her into his arms and crush her to his chest and apologize for everything he'd done wrong by her. He'd tell her that he loved her and that he was sorry he had ever made her doubt that. It didn't flicker once in her mind that that scene had played over too many times for their relationship to ever have been healthy. Winston was a man of his desires. He found pleasure where he needed for the night. But she still loved every piece of him. And maybe, in the end, that's what had turned him off so completely to her. Karima's needs no longer matched up.

It was a typical friends-with-benefits-gone-wrong situation. She'd fallen for him, hard. She'd always been a guarded girl, and she'd had more "FWBs" than she'd ever want to admit, he had unexpectedly broken down every wall she'd ever built. In the name of self-preservation, she'd shut down at first and run away from him, but he'd chased her. And something in her had loved that. She'd never been chased like that before. No one had ever wanted her so badly. At the beginning of the relationship, Karima feared she only was with him because she was intoxicated by the fact he had so clearly wanted her-every part of her, and not just the body he worshipped.

They'd been together for three years. Three years. Still, as she watched the door and waited for it to slam open, she couldn't in her mind piece together what had gone wrong.

Karima lost track of how long she stood there, her feet planted firmly on the wooden floor, unblinking eyes staring at the door, watching. Waiting. Waiting to wake up, waiting to feel like she was wanted again, waiting to see Winston's face.

Something inside her knew that he wasn't coming back.

Something inside her knew that their last confrontation... it was their last.