12. Avery #3
But I overpowered him in this brief skirmish.
Whatever he was trying to do — hold me or wrestle me — failed.
He slipped in the snow and I let go once I saw I was the last support he had.
I stepped back, and Grayson stumbled forward, falling into the mound of snow.
He flailed and struggled to his knees, stumbling again as he tried to follow.
That was how I left him. My vision blurred as a gust of wind picked up and whipped my face. I marched with my fists closed. It wasn’t until I reached the road that I realized I was out of breath. I’d been breathing so shallowly that my vision was narrowing.
The walk home was simultaneously the longest I had ever lived through and also only lasted an instant.
Each step I made hurt, yet I was in front of the team house sooner than I was ready.
I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t want to be seen, understood, and pitied.
I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for my stupid broken heart.
I didn’t want anyone to tell me it would be alright.
Stupidity like this was incurable. I was a gullible guy who’d fallen for a liar and believed I’d been lucky. He had never cared about me.
Bitterness coated my tongue as I entered the house and walked straight to my room. Someone greeted me from the sofa in the common room, but I was too numb to reply. It was only when I shut the door behind my back that the numbness began to fade.
I wished it wouldn’t.
The pain assumed its place. The tingling left me and only aches remained.
My throat closed so tightly that I couldn’t inhale without wheezing. Even without the vicious wind, my eyes were stinging, and my vision was blurry. When hot tears spilled over the brink and streaked my cold cheeks, pure hatred filled me.
My gaze went to the single dry rose under my window.
I crossed the room in a rage and grabbed the goddamn thing, slamming its dry petals against the desk.
The petals fell off as I smashed it again and again, turning to flakes and to dust. The stem snapped in my hand and the remainder of the flower fell on the floor where we had made love.
I stomped on it with one booted foot, pain shooting up my leg.
How could he have done this to me? Hadn’t I told him how badly I needed trust between us? Hadn’t I told him how much I needed to know his soul before I could give in? I had thought he was beautiful. I had thought his heart was beautiful, when all he ever did was manipulate and settle a score.
I turned my rage to the desk. It was cluttered with his goddamn cards and trinkets.
Tears welled again in my eyes and poured down my cheeks, sobs rising in my chest. I shuddered with a desperate need to take a deep breath of air, but I couldn’t calm myself down.
I couldn’t break free of the panic. How could I be so ignorant?
How could I let us get this far and never see through his lies?
I swiped across my desk in a blind rage, carrying off all the cards, books, pens, and notebooks. I wiped it clean of his things and mine a moment before my legs folded under me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried.
I hated it. My voice was sore when it broke through my closed throat.
My lower jaw was quivering when I gulped for air.
My brow pressed hard against the carpet, and heat overwhelmed me.
Sweat was breaking out on my brow and under my arms, so I fumbled to take my coat off.
This afternoon, I hadn’t admitted the most obvious thing of all to myself.
I hadn’t admitted that I had fallen in love with him.
But now, my future was bleak. My life lacked the drive he had given it.
The home and the love and the joy that I had expected were gone and only now could I see all the places in my heart he had filled. Only now when they were empty and cold.
I was better off feeling nothing. It had served me well for so long.
I took my coat off and dragged myself to the bed, then noticed my old earring on the nightstand. His emerald was still dangling from my ear.
What a fucking joke. He had spared nothing in this ruse. He had lavishly showered me with gifts and attention and I had been so starved for love that I ignored all the red flags.
I had let him lead me on because nobody else would have. Nobody would have treated me so well. It was so obviously a scam that I wanted to scream and claw my useless eyes out. How had I not seen through it?
I grabbed the emerald earring and unhooked it from my ear. I jerked it out, scratching myself as I did so. Pain seared through my ear and I threw the gift across the room, hoping it would fall through some tiny crack in the floor. Hoping I would never see it again.
When I collapsed in the bed, I pressed my face into the pillow and moaned away all the pain that had filled my chest. It didn’t help much, but at least nobody could hear me. And I could wear my voice out until I couldn’t speak.
I didn’t know when I fell asleep. I didn’t know what time it was when I woke up. All I knew was the bottomless pit of blackness and despair that had opened in my chest. And shame. Endless shame that tasted like bitter bile.
I was weak. And I was stupid. And I was naive.
But I would never let that weakness get the better of me again.
I would never feel anything again. It was far safer to not feel at all. This emptiness he left in me had been there before. He had only temporarily filled the gaps in my soul. I’d lived my whole life just fine before him. I could survive his absence too.
Grayson Reed was nothing to me.