Only If She Stayed

24. Airways

"HOW DID you get in here?" I croaked. Backing out of the room, I waited for the sounds of my mother's voice down the hall. "Mom, mom, are you here?!"

"Yes sweetie." She said from downstairs. "Is everything ok?"

My heart did a summersault, exhaling a breath and calming myself at last. I knew that Edgar wouldn't do anything too crazy with my mom in the house with us. It was dumb of me to have not told her about my breakup with Edgar. If I had, it would've saved me from the awkwardness I was trapped in now.

"Get out of here, Edgar."

"I want to talk."

"You started off with an insult," I reminded him, keeping the door wide open, and a good distance apart. "Get out."

"You never answered my question," he mused, "Are you a slut or not?"

"I don't need to explain myself to you."

"That's enough of an answer for me," he said with his hands up in the air. "I don't need you to say anything else. I can tell that you're going to avoid every question I throw at you."

"Leave." I ordered for what felt like the hundredth time. "Leave before I scream."

"You wouldn't."

He was warning me.

"I would."

There was no part of me that wanted him in this room. I would let out a blood curdling scream if he inched in closer to me, touched me, or even said another nasty thing to me. This was the last time he would ever see the inside of my room. He would never get the privilege of being my boyfriend.

"I thought I was going to marry you, Rosie."

Those words almost broke me. Emphasis on the word almost.

On a different day, it probably would have torn me apart to see the sadness sweep into his eyes, making a home in his pupils. His shoulders slumped and he dug his hands deep into his pockets. Now that he saw insulting me wasn't going to work, he decided a different tactic.

Persuasion.

"You can't possibly be into that new guy. You barely know him. You and me, we're meant to be. We go together like peanut butter and jelly –"

"I hate PB&J sandwiches."

"You know what I mean—"

"You and I don't make sense together."

"That's not true. You're the most popular girl at school, and I'm the most popular guy. We're suppose to be together. You and I are meant to be endgame."

"Endgame? You and I are meant to breakup by graduation."

"You wouldn't have done that."

"We would've gone to two separate colleges and eventually would've gotten interested in dating other people. Like every high school relationship."

"That's not what happened with my parents," he offered. "They're still together."

"Your parents hate each other, Edgar."

"They love each other...passionately. You just don't understand their passion."

"I don't want to be loved like that," I concluded. "I don't want to be trapped in a loveless marriage at the age of thirty-seven. I don't want to be stuck, being a housewife for some man who owns a car dealership. I want something that has affection in every corner, love at each stop, and patience beyond anything else. You don't give me peace. You give me anxiety."

"You never said that."

"Because I never spent this much time apart from you, and with someone else," I lied about the last part. Ashton didn't open my eyes to this. If I were to give anyone credit, it would have to be to my best friend, Michael. "Now please, can you leave?"

Edgar listened to me, for the first time, and started walking to the door. I pushed my back against the wall so that I could give him room to pass by me without touching me. He reached his hand out to me, and I flinched. The look on Edgar's face was shock.

"I wouldn't hurt you." He promised without much conviction. "I would rather hurt myself before hurting you. Hurting you would mean attacking my other half. Why would I want to bring harm to m—"

 

"Please." I cut him off again. "Leave."

*****

 

            EVIL.

            I wouldn't use that word lightly, but to describe my ex, I would apply it liberally – all across his name, his face, his reputation.

Going to school, I expect things to be different. There was a shift in who I decided to socialize with, and the rest of the school had taken note of that. Today, I had a hard time from keeping the girls on the dance team from stop talking when I walked into practice, clearly breaking up the circulation of a new rumor taking over the airways.

"What's all the commotion about?" I asked Reagan. "You know anything about it?"

"You don't want to know."

"Why not?"

"It's about you."

"Huh?"

"Apparently, from what people are saying, you weren't around saying that you're immune to chlamydia."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. People are saying you slept with Tyler, and that you didn't use protection because you said you've gotten chlamydia before and thought it was like getting chickenpox. You know, that once you get it one time, you can't get it again."

"I would never say something so stupid." I paused. "But Edgar would."

No doubt in my mind, I knew, I had to get him back for this.

How?

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