Last Man Standing

The look on your face makes my stomach turn. I feel a million different things at once. Another thing I got from you. Another foreign concept that I have been forced to grow used to. I don’t like the fact that you are frowning. It makes me want to put my hands over my ears so I can’t hear what you are going to say. A juvenile gesture, to say the least. But I am scared. For the first time in my life, I am really, truly scared. Why are you looking at me like that? Like I might break. You should know that I am strong. There is only one thing that could even come close to breaking me. Please tell me that’s not what is happening.

You open your mouth, and I want to kiss your cherry lips. That would delay whatever is happening for a few seconds. Instead I cross my arms over my chest and wait.

The first words out of your mouth are, I love you.

This startles me. It’s not like I didn’t know it, but you never said it. It was an unspoken rule. I think you knew that I wouldn’t say it back. I still won’t. Even if I did – even though I do – feel that way, something keeps the words from escaping my lips. And hearing them from yours is odd, if not entirely surprising. And it makes me all the more alert.

You tell me again that you love me, that you have for a while.

I really wish you would stop teasing me and say whatever you came to say. Hope is rising within me, growing stronger with every ‘love’. But the fear will not budge.

Then, you say that you know that I don’t love you back. You never expected me to.

I want to scream at you, tell you how wrong you are. But my pride refuses to let me.

It was fine for a while, you say. You could deal with it. You got love from other sources, and as long as you were with me you could pretend I was giving it, too.

 I was. I was giving it. But I don’t love like you. I can’t. You, you hand your heart out on a platter to any willing to accept it. I can’t do that. Maybe I’m just stronger than you. Or maybe I’m the weak one.

But soon, you continue, you had to face the facts. I didn’t love you. And I never would. And that’s why you can’t be with me anymore.

My heart drops, and I can almost hear it shattering. I am empty again, like I was for so many years. Before you came along, and offered me some of yourself, and I took it into me and I was a little more human. And now you’re taking it all back, making me into what I was before.

You say you’re sorry.

 Don’t be, I say. My first words.

Your eyes narrow. Those beautiful eyes that I spent so many nights looking into. You are confused.

You have no reason to be sorry, I explain. You were right. I don’t love you. How could I love someone as weak and pathetic as you?

Your face falls. I smirk. You are hurting. Good. You should be hurting. I am. But then your eyes harden, flashing with anger.

You tell me that I am the pathetic one. I like to think that I don’t need anyone, but in reality I am just a coward. And I will always be alone.

I feel a twinge. You are right, part of me knows that.

Go run back to Potter, I say, my voice as hard as glass. Maybe he’ll notice you this time.

You scowl at me before storming away. I want to run after you, catch you by the arm and explain to you that this is all a mistake. I want to spend the night lying beside you, your hair all around me like a river of fire. I want to hold you and touch you and kiss you. But I don’t run. I don’t even walk. I stand exactly where you left me. Letting it sink in.

I lost you. I could have made you stay, I know that. All you needed was to know that I did, in fact, love you. The one time that I actually needed those words, and they still refused to come. I am a strong person. There is only one person in this world who could break me. And as I stand here, pain flooding through ever part of me, I realize that it has happened. And I will never be the same.