Ridiculous: Mattory

16: You Still Have All of Me

A/N: I promise it'll get better guys... but it has to get worse first. Please don't kill me, the fire place pokers I was passing out a few chapters ago are for Luke, not me... And yeah, I went with Evanescence's My Immortal for this one. I realize it's probably been done to death, but really, there's nothing like it to get you in the mood for writing some post-breakup angst...

Mallory

It shattered me to walk away from him.

Not just walking away—it was the fact that I'd lied to his face that would haunt me for the rest of my days. The lie that I didn't want forever—and the lie of omission that said I didn't love him anymore.

I pretend not to hear the sob I know he's trying to hide from me, maybe as one last courtesy or maybe because I know if I turn around I'm going to fly back into his arms and never leave them and I can't let myself do that. Not after what I just did.

It's harder to ignore the sound of him slamming his hand against the railing or the muttered oath I'm quite certain I've never heard escape his mouth before, but somehow my feet keep carrying me away. My heavy footsteps and ragged breathing echo through the stairwell.

Somehow I make it out of the studio and into my car. It's only years of practice and acting and suppressing my emotions that I stay dry eyed, forcing myself to pay a particular amount of attention to the drive home.

When I stand at my apartment door, though, and reach for a key that I now have a redundant copy of, I finally let myself fall apart. Tears blur my vision as I step through the door and sink onto the couch.

It doesn't make sense, I find myself thinking. I'd dumped and been dumped a dozen times or more in my life but none of them had felt this phenomenally earth-shattering. I shudder and curl in on myself when I realize I'll have to face Matt again tomorrow morning, and the morning after that... and the morning after that.

After sobbing turns to hiccuping and even that fades away, I can't help yelling at myself. Why had I lied? Why had I still gone through with breaking up with him when my main reason for doing it had fallen away?

Now that I'm distant enough to think a little straighter, the pieces click into place. I'd been upset, prepared to break up with him to save our jobs... and when he told me he knew what was going on with Ballinger—or, more accurately, told me that he hadn't told me what was going on with Ballinger—I'd just snapped. A huge, giant, tremendous... I stop trying to think of synonyms for massive and let myself dwell on the word mistake.

One I'd have to try and remedy.

~~~

Four and a half months never could have been enough. Not even if we'd known coming into it that that would be all we'd have, if we spent every waking moment with each other.

Part of my dimly wonders if four and a half years would have been enough.

Another, more treacherous part of me, buried even deeper, wonders the same thing about four and a half decades. I push it aside.

Sheer strength of will gets me out of bed the next day. It does not, however, push me to do anything as normal as putting on makeup or even styling my hair into anything more than a sloppy ponytail. I do force myself to eat breakfast, even though something as light as yogurt sits like lead in my stomach.