For all her anger, the ugliest truths about herself were being laid bare in front of her by the man who had said how much he loved her mere days ago. A whole year she’d believed he could be the man, the person, to break her stupid cycle of wrong people and regret. Partly she knew she was pushing him away, bricking herself up totally so he could never hurt her again. Once was too often for her.
Unbelievably angry at herself for breaking in front of the man who had broken her, Abi turned away from him to compose herself and saw photographs of them on the shelves. Her holding Charlie in her lap at Christmas with Hemingway beaming from her side. It felt like a lie now, a beautiful lie but something wrong nonetheless. There was a vicious part inside her that wanted to smash and burn every part of it to the ground but even she couldn’t deny how happy she’d been that day. It didn’t feel like a lie then, so why did it now?
Abi could hear the way he spoke, how incredible resolved he was. “Chance?” she said, just as bitterly. Turning on her heel and glaring at him with intense anger. “How much of myself have I given you? I’m not fucking perfect but I had to be, didn’t I? God forbid I show any weakness. I showed it last night and now look what’s happened, Hem! We can’t handle both of us being in pain at the same time, one of us has to be strong to support the other.”
Not even caring anymore, she looked at the ring on her finger and found how it shined to be so fucking fake that it made her sick. “You know what, I am scared. I’m scared of you sometimes, is that what you want to hear?” she said, still crying uncontrollably. “You want me to rip open all I’ve tried to heal up in the last ten years of my life?” she sniffled and shook her head. “I haven’t ripped myself open for you because I don’t know if you can heal me again when I do. That’s why I’m scared of you. I’m scared that I open up, bleed out and you’ll just leave me there, torn open. Torn apart.” Her voice cracked on the last two words and she sobbed.
“I need a fucking drink…” she muttered and stalked into the kitchen, needing space more than anything.