See You Bleed | ✓

IX

"You know, I liked rereading all the messages you've sent me while I was gone over and over again," he's puffing out a smoke and goes on, "they were the only thing that brought me solace and reassurance back then," he says with a tiny smile.

"You never wrote back," I remind him with a bitter smile. We're sitting on the rooftop overlooking the sleeping city again.

I must be mentally challenged to keep letting him back in after he continuously makes me feel like shit.

"I will be regretting about that all my life, beautiful," he whispers sadly.

We are quietly watching the sunrise. For a long time I had abandoned our secret spot on the rooftop. I couldn't stand the thought of ever coming here without him.

But now we're here for the second time over the past two weeks and I hate to admit that I'm happy when I'm with him, at least when we don't fight.

"There's one message I can't stand though," he sounds earnest and I wait for him to go on with curiosity.

"You hadn't texted me for about three years when I received that message out of the blue. Before that I had been relieved that you forgot about me and went on living your life without me, even though the thought of it hurt like hell," he chuckles, with traces of torment in his eyes.

I try to remember the message he's talking about but, for some reason, I can't.

Max notices the lost look on my face and adds "It was actually a voice message. You sounded drunk so you must not remember it. But I do," he closes his eyes.

His face twists in pain while he repeats that memory in his head. I'm not sure I want to know what I said to him in that message if it hurt him this much.

"It kept me up at night for days, weeks, months. For the first time in those years I realised that maybe you weren't as strong as I thought you'd be. That maybe you weren't doing as good as I hoped you would be, and I felt like the biggest fucking asshole in the world for hurting my girl that much," he says with the raw emotion in his voice.

I look away and try to hide the tears falling down my cheeks behind my hair. I had dreamed about confronting him and telling him how much he ruined me for such a long time, but now I just want to forget the past and move on with my life.