Silent | HS

00.

They never told me the aftermath of love.

Instead, they left me in the shadows. I wore my heart on my sleeve for the first time and it was ripped clean from me, thrown on the floor and trampled on. The pain I endured was unbearable, a type of pain that I thought would kill me the longer it lasted.

And the more I think about it, I begin to wonder if the pain of closing my eyes on more time would be less painful than the sight in front of me right now.

I should've known that trusting wasn't as simple as I wanted to believe. However, that small, naive and desperate part of me trusted him because deep down, I crave validation and I didn't realise that until his absence crawled through my door and welcomed itself into my arms.

Sometimes, when it was late at night and the light settled down, allowing the darkness to shine through my windows and sink into my skin, I would allow myself to feel vulnerable. The rain would pelt down in heavy sheets, making me feel less alone and less vulnerable, less naive.

That's the thing about trust.

Once you have it with someone, you never realise how easy it is to break and how hard it is to earn back. My problem was that I trusted him too easily, I gave him everything I possibly could to prove to him that I wouldn't turn out like the reasoning of his trust issues. And just when I felt comfortable enough, knowing that he trusted me, he shattered mine like it was the easiest thing for him to do.

"I really thought we were meant to be, Zee," his voice that once was my safe space, a sound that felt so normal and gentle to me now only made my skin crawl. My eyes met the floor, despite being forced to face him, I couldn't dare look back at him, "I'd like to say I'm sorry for making you think I could offer more than meaningless fucks..." I flinched when his cold hand meets the skin on my thigh, "But that would be a lie and I've always hated liars."

I kept telling myself that the words that came out his mouth were lies, tried to wrap myself into a bubble of comfort that he was only saying this because he wanted me to hate him, but the more I repeated it in my head, the less I began to believe it.

However, I know better than to let a man's words hurt me. I've heard this sentence more than enough times to know better. I took it with a pinch of salt - but even with it coming from a man, he was a more bearable man. He was the one man that gave me hope.

So, it stung a little bit.

"That's ironic," I managed to spit, rolling my eyes, "Coming from the man who fed me lies for six months."

He shook his head, "No," he immediately lied again, removing his hand from my thigh but his body didn't move. He was so, so threateningly close to me that it reminded me of the times I enjoyed being close to him. If this was a normal time, I would've wanted him closer, "Baby, that was a secret."

If I had the physical strength, I would've laughed in his face right now. However, that was something I lacked. The only thing I could do was move my lips.

"You're delusional beyond repair," there was no emotion to my tone, and I could tell that was slightly bothering him, making him wonder if I was actually bothered by his attempt to scare me right now. "That's a comfort to nobody but you, Harry. Every word that comes out your mouth is a lie, I should've realised that sooner."

"Yet you believed me every time," he admits hes everything he despises without realising. A small, taunting chuckle escapes from the back of his throat and he moves closer, "I pity you, Zee. You've been through so much, it's a shame you've got another problem to add to your list. Tell me, Romano, did you really think I loved you?"

It almost makes me repulse to think I actually thought someone could love me. But I believed him, every single time he expressed his feelings for me, I took them in pride and began to let my guard down.

"What are you trying to do here, Harry?" I pushed the pain to the side for a moment, "Scare me then kill me? If you think that when you do pull that trigger, you immediately lost the game you're trying to force me into. Save me the boredom and do what you need to do."

I wish I could say I wasn't scared of death.

However, when I met him, that fear slowly crept into my body. It planted itself in there and consumed me until it became some type of nightmare that replayed in my head like a broken record player. The unknown, the fact life is unpredictable but death isn't, that should've scared me, but it didn't.

It was leaving him that scared me.

However, when I finally pluck up the courage to let my eyes burn into his own, it was the realisation that whatever sort of emotion, sort of hint in there that he could've given me to suggest this was a game, was gone. There was nothing behind those eyes. They were now only a reflection.

"I wish I could say I didn't want to do this, Zee," Harry dryly responds, "But that, again, would be a lie."

The last thing I heard pour from his lips before my world was turning a dark sheet of black and my eyes were forced shut for the last time was a broken sentence, words that I didn't understand and fortunately for him, I would never have the opportunity to.

"No guería ser tu villana."

He won.