A Love Like Ours

Chapter 6

The drink was chased out of my system. Any sense of hope or happiness I'd been feeling was long gone, and I couldn't really remember what it meant to feel either—what it felt like to be either.

I could only stare for a moment—feel the hand in mine, and the rock that lodged itself between us. I could only see the way it sparkled, the way it shimmered under the lights in the room before I let go, before I pulled my hand away, before she spoke.

"Harry." Nervous, frazzled, breathless. "Please. Wait -"

But I didn't wait. Couldn't wait. I had to get out of here.

I had to get away from her.

The people around us seemed to part, or at least, I didn't notice them as I stumbled, breathless, toward the exit. And each step brought me closer to the door, to the outside world. Because I needed to confirm that it was still there, that even though it felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me, and everything I knew in my life was stood on it's head, there was still a whole big world out there. A world that was separate from her.

"Harry!" her voice called.

My blood had gone cold, but somehow, my whole body felt heated. The cool air in the hallway was a relief I hadn't expected, a relief I couldn't even really process. I just had to keep moving.

But her heels clicked rapidly on the floor behind me.

"Harry, please," she begged.

I sped up.

And it still hurt. After all this time, all the denials, all of the wondering and still somehow knowing that she loved me despite the distance, even after seeing that ring on the most important finger of her left hand—the finger that was supposed to be mine—it still hurt to hear her like that.

"Let me explain," her hand was on my arm, pulling at my jacket, "please just... stop."

"Why?" I spat, turning only halfway to look her in the eye, to let her see the damage she'd done.

Her mouth snapped shut, and just before I turned around, I saw the regret there in her eyes. But  I ripped my arm away from her and walked outside, ignoring the stares of the wait staff milling around at the front of the restaurant, ignoring the sound of her voice as she called my name yet again.

"Please, just... I - I can explain," she said, her voice too close in the humid night air.

I stopped, hands on my waist, just breathing it in. My chest hurt with the effort. It ached with the truth.

"Harry," she said, and her voice was much softer, with a much clearer note of pain in it.

Hearing that pain made me angry. And a bunch of other things I didn't want to be feeling. The emotion welled up in my throat, begging for release. My back still turned to her, I brought a hand up to my mouth, suppressed the tears. There would be time for that. And that time wasn't now.

"Harry," she said again, interrupting the silence between us. Her voice broke on the next word, "Please."

Something in me gave way, shuddering and falling apart at the sound of that voice, all broken and scared and hurt. But she'd done this. It was her fault. She was the one who had the power to split me open, tearing at the edges of who I was and what I felt for her until they were frayed—and she'd wielded it. She'd done it, leaving me damaged and useless. Those pieces of me—who I was to my very core, once sealed by my love for her—would never come together the same way again.

And for her to think that I would want to listen to her, want to hear her explain that she was with someone else, and so committed to whoever the fuck he was that they'd gotten engaged—it was wrong. So fucking wrong.