SYLAS
I watch intently as she scrolls through the endless pictures on her camera roll. I’m certain eighty percent consist of Rosie, while the remainder is of the bakery, her coworker, Clementine, and Jenny.
So many pictures, so many memories, so much I missed.
I can only imagine how much she must’ve hated me for not being there, for not helping her, for thinking I wanted nothing to do with her and our daughter.
She’s still scrolling and I’m just watching her finger move on the screen until I lift my gaze to the side of her face. The way I’m staring is not discreet, but she doesn’t feel real, and I’m afraid I dreamed this all up.
So I stare, knowing it’s all I can do, probably all I’ll ever be able to do.
I want you back, I want to tell her. Please give me another chance, I’m desperate to say.
But I swallow back the words and just watch her.
She’s just as beautiful as the last time I saw her—sharp whiskey eyes, supple lips, her black bangs curtaining her forehead, though they’re not as long as they used to be. Her skin tone is light brown, but I know she’s glowing and it’s just a tad bit darker from the sun.
“Stop staring at me like that.” She side-eyes me, and a tiny divot creases between her brows.
“Like what?” I drop my gaze and don’t mean to settle on her chest when she turns to look at me.
“Like that, all weird and stuff.”
A small chuckle works its way up my throat. “And stuff?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, so please enlighten me.”
“You’re just as annoying as you were when I first met you,” she snipes.
This time I can’t help the laugh that tumbles out of my mouth. “Don’t act like you didn’t like that about me.”
She scoffs as if she were annoyed, but I spot the twitch of her lips, like she’s trying to keep them from curling up. “Ugh, no. That was the worst part. Well, that and your God complex.”
“Right, because you complained about it so much when we were in bed—” I really do need to start thinking before speaking. Fuck. “I’m just going to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the day.”
“Beautiful. Probably the best thing you’ve ever said,” she retorts sarcastically.
Shut up, Sylas. Shut the fuck up. Don’t say it. She’ll hate you more than she probably already does.
The words are there though, at the tip of my tongue, teasing to be let out. She must sense what I’m thinking because she shifts the conversation back to the pictures.
Thank God because I was close to saying she didn’t seem to think so when I was degrading her and fucking her doggy style.
“I thought I had the video, but I guess don’t. I’ll have Jenny send it to me whenever she can.” She goes to her messages, taps her best friend’s name, and sends her a message. “But I can show you everything else.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but—”
She chuckles, but quickly muffles it. “Sorry.”
“What?” I quirk a brow.
“Nothing. I don’t have many videos or pictures of Rosie in the hospital, but—”
“No, don’t do that. Tell me.”
We used to speak our minds, and now we’re tiptoeing around each other, filtering what we should and shouldn’t say. I know it’s my fault, but I hate it.
The corner of her mouth jerks up. “Since when do you say ‘I hope you don’t mind’?”
“Since my mouth has gotten me in trouble and is the reason I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Before I uttered the words that ended our relationship, I’d been filled with a sense of dread, as if my body knew what I was going to do and warned me against it. But I didn’t listen, despite how every cell inside me resisted.
I knew I fucked up, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. I was chained to the void in my head.
Until now.
I desperately want to fix it or at least for her to know I regret it. That I loved her then and have loved her every day since.
Anna tenses next to me, and her fingers freeze mid scroll. Her gaze stays trained on her screen, but the finger hovering over it droops down.
“I regret it,” I admit, shaking my head. “I regret ending things.”
She drums her fingers on her thigh, mulling over her next words, then looks at me. Her eyes are distant, devoid of any emotion. She draws back an inch, but she might as well be miles away. That’s how far she feels.
“Don’t say that to me.” Anna’s voice is monotone.
I glance at the space between us, needing to acknowledge it. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“No, you’re making it hard to breathe.” She scowls, blowing out an agitated breath, and stands. “I want to make this work. I want to be able to co-parent and get along. To do that, you can’t bring up the past. I don’t need your regrets. I don’t want them.”
I stand, unable to contain myself anymore.
“Anna, you are my past, my present, my future. I have regrets.” I point at my chest. “So many of them and they all started when I broke up with you. That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
” So many emotions flicker across her face.
She looks like she’s in pain, with her eyebrows pulled together, her lip wedged between her teeth, her glassy eyes.
“Every single day, I hate myself for doing it. I go to sleep regretting that I let you go. I need to tell you how I feel because I don’t want this to be something else I regret.
So if you need to hate me for bringing up the past, because I fucked it all up, for everything you had to go through, then please do.
Because I’d rather spend the rest of my life knowing that you hate me than to ever have to wonder what you feel for me. ”
The words break free, bouncing over every surface in my condo.
She stares at me nonplussed, like she’s struggling to grasp what I’m saying. “So you’re telling me you’re okay with that? You’d be okay with me hating you for the rest of our lives?”
I don’t hesitate when I answer. “You’d feel something for me, so yeah. Something is better than nothing.”
I said what I said and I won’t take it back. But I can’t tell what she’s feeling at my admission.
“Sylas…” Anna starts, exhaling a heavy breath. “I—no. We can’t do this. I don’t want—no. I’m here for Rosie, not for us.” She retreats before she’s spinning on her heels and heading to the elevator.
I’m rushing behind her. “Anna, wait, please don’t—”
I abruptly stop when she whips back around.
“I begged you not to break up with me!” Her voice is brimming with rage, but looks forlorn.
“I asked you what I needed to do to make you feel better, to make it work, to stop you from leaving me because I didn’t want you to!
I said I’d come back from France. I told you I’d do everything and anything for you and you still said ‘it’s for the best’ as if all the years we spent together meant nothing. As if I meant nothing to you.”
My heart races, and my damp fingers curl and become stiff. There’s no ringing in my ears, and my vision doesn’t tunnel, but I still feel like I’m outside my body. Why can’t I function properly? I know why, but I hate that this happens. I hate that I don’t have control.
I blink out of my stupor or at least attempt to. “No, that’s not true. You mean everything to—”
“I can’t do this.” Her voice cracks, but the words are definitive. “I need…I’ll…you…”
Her words come in and out, and my vision fogs. I try to make out what she’s saying, beg my mouth to open, to force the words out, but everything stays lodged in the back of my throat.
God, I need my cigarettes.
“Sylas?” Anna hesitantly takes a few steps toward me. “Hey, you okay?”
“No, I need to sit down,” I think I say before dropping to the floor, right where I’m at.
I break into a cold sweat as I lie on my back, and everything spins, even when I close my eyes. Her voice starts far away, but it slowly becomes a touch louder. Then I feel her warmth, get a faint hint of her perfume, and my body feels like it’s semi mine when her hand rests on my shoulder.
When I open my eyes, she’s sitting on her knees looking down at me with concern etched on her face, palm still on me.
“I’m okay,” I say, embarrassed, but I don’t bother to move from my spot on the floor and neither does she. “Just got dizzy. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look like you’re fine.” She pauses, softly massaging me. I’m not sure if she realizes she’s doing it, but I’m thankful for the soothing motion. “You want to talk to me? I’m here.”
I shield my face with my arm, not able to look her in the eyes anymore. “No, it’s all right. If you need to leave, that’s okay.”
I always am when this happens, and this is better than a panic attack. So it’s kind of a win, or it would have been if Anna hadn’t been here to witness it.
It grows quiet and then I hear shuffling, and when I take a peek, she’s lying on the floor next to me.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.” She takes my hand in hers and squeezes it.
“I hope you know I didn’t do this on purpose. I swear, I’m okay now. You don’t—”
“Sylas, shut up.” She squeezes my hand again. I turn my head, and she turns hers and graces me with the smallest smile. “Breathe.”