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forty-six:: when you give him space.

[Luving U by 6lack]

FORTY-SIX: when you give him space.

We just stared at each other.

And not the good kind of staring, not the kind that had my heart pounding, the silence filled with blushing and wavering eye contact. Not the communicating kind of staring, the tense kind with fidgeting and uneasiness. I never had these moments with Paul but lately, we hadn't spoken, things hadn't been as easy as they were, it was rocky and I was walking on eggshells to keep him in my life, it felt.

"What?"

"Jules..."

"You wanna take a what?" My heart had dropped and at the words he'd said, I distanced myself from him. Even despite the heart-wrenching words he'd thrown at me, i still found myself looking at him, at the way he stayed looking straight and I just wanted his brown eyes to connect with mine.

Or I did until he tried to explain himself and the more he talked, the more confused I became and the more confused I became... the angrier I got. "I-I think that I need this time to myself. I just, I need to-" cutting him off, I rolled my eyes.

"Break up with me." What the fuck else could that mean? Standing up from my bed, I walked away from him, hoping that would make it hurt a little less. "A break means that you wanna break up with me or you wanna be with other people and string me along, a break doesn't do shit but hurt." I'd done everything to make him want me and I still wasn't e-fucking-nough.

"No," he still wasn't looking at me and I wondered how bad this was for him, briefly I thought about how horrible of an event had to have happened to him that he shut down like this. Paul wasn't a secretive person, I'd thought that was until he started keeping all these things from me and instead of confronting the problem head-on, he preferred to take a break, "we just need some time apart."

"Oh." I was trying my best not to be too mad at him, he was going through something, I had to be understanding.

"Julian, it's not you-"

Trying not to be too harsh on him, I ended up turning away and biting my tongue. He didn't see my face nor hear the cuss words that I was prepared to shoot at him only ten seconds before. "It's not me, it's you, whatever." that was way by far nicer than anything I'd been thinking.

"I'm sorry." His voice was soft and I hadn't hated anything more than the way I hated how much I loved his voice. "Look, I'm not in a good place right now and I thought I was and-"

And I snapped, turning around quick enough to see him flinch and I tried not to scream. He had such a huge effect on me, my emotions spiraling and I hadn't been in this much pain in weeks. "I wasn't in a good place." Shaking my head, I wiped underneath my eye as I felt myself about to cry. I cried so much over him already. "I haven't been in a good place in so long but I never gave up on us."

"You're not even trying!"

"Julian."

"No, no I don't wanna take a break."

"Baby—"

"Don't."

Silence.