by Lazeema Haq
For a long time they remained wrapped up in each other’s arms on the living room floor. While he slept her eyes remained fixated on him, inhaling him in, memorizing every inch of his face so the image was burned into her brain. When he woke up a short while later, she was still lying next to him. “What?” he murmured drowsily, giving her an Eskimo kiss. “You’re looking at me like I grew a second head or something.”
“Didn’t you always have two heads?”
He smirked. “Nah, you only think that because I have a massive ego. Easy mistake.”
“You have an ego? Impossible.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t like it.”
He stretched out his arms and she used the opportunity to move closer, snuggling atop him, resting her head on his chest and listening to his heart beat.
“I missed you,” he said softly, running his fingers through her hair.
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
Her heart started pounding, and her hands felt clammy. Uneasiness washed over her again and she struggled with it, telling herself now was not the right time to have that discussion with him. It would have to wait till the morning. “You must be hungry. I’ll get you something to eat.” She moved to sit up when he grasped her elbow, stopping her.
“Hey, you know who I ran into when I was in London?”
She turned back to look at him. “Who?”
“Lily.”
She paused, filled with inexplicable dread. “Really?”
“She mentioned she met you, that you guys had a conversation or something.”
“I didn’t realise you were still on friendly terms with her.”
“We’re not. She wished me dead, and told me she couldn’t wait till you dumped me.” He sat up, his eyes brimming with suspicion. “Why didn’t you tell me you guys talked? When was it? What did she say to you?”
“Nothing important.”
“Yet you kept it a secret.”
“Why are you interrogating me?”
“Why are you lying to me?”
A dark storm brewed in the horizon, threatening to erupt any second now. Before it did, she needed to make her escape. She practically ran to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection. Now. She needed to talk to him now, before everything spiraled out of control. Taking a deep breath, she wrapped herself in a robe and exited the bathroom. Tristan was in his jeans with a beer in his hand, sitting on the couch. Hesitation marked her every step as she returned to sit down on the opposite end of the sofa.
“What exactly did she say?” he demanded, his lips set in a tight, grim line.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Bullshit. When the fuck did you guys talk? Is that why you’ve been acting so distant lately? Why you wouldn’t let me touch you before?”
His stare was intense, probing deep into her insides, but she willed herself to be strong. “I can’t do this anymore, Tristan.”
He set the beer bottle on the floor. “Do what exactly?” he asked, his voice clipped.
“I just… I need some space, some time alone to myself. I think we should take a break for a little bit.”
He didn’t say anything first, simply glaring at her, until, finally, she couldn’t bear it any longer and shifted her focus back to him. Jaw clenched, his blue eyes seething with rage, he watched her with a frighteningly glacial expression.
Her voice cracked as she pleaded with him. “Say something.”
“So you believe her over me. After everything we’ve been through, you believe her.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about! This has nothing to do with Lily!”
“Don’t give me that bullshit about you needing space.” He leaned forward, closing some of the distance between them. “You told me you’d never leave me. You lied to me.”
Every accusation he hurled felt like a stone being flung at her, and she flinched under the hatred in his voice. Why was her mind suddenly blank? What happened to the words she’d practised earlier?
“What changed?” he demanded. “You couldn’t get enough of me when you were fucking me half an hour ago. You were begging me to fuck you harder, you were screaming my name when I was inside you. Didn’t seem like you needed space then.”
She closed her eyes. “Stop, please.”
“No, you fucking look at me! If you’re going to break my heart, the least you can do is look at me when you do it.”
Tears streamed down her face as she opened her eyes. He was panting for air, trembling, struggling to regain control. Pain marred his troubled features, and it broke everything inside her to see him like this. She raised her hand to comfort him but he pushed it away, his face hardening once again.
“Is there someone else? Are you fucking someone else?”
“No!”
“Then why? Why? Why are you doing this to us?”
“Because being with you makes me want to hurt myself!”
The words slipped out before she could stop herself and she instantly regretted them. Tristan looked absolutely devastated. His mouth opened as if he wanted to argue with her but then he didn’t speak, his eyes frantic as they wavered back and forth between her face and her hands.
All of a sudden he pulled up her sleeves to look at her wrists, parted her robe to see the insides of her thighs, and she pleaded with him to stop, begged him, but he wouldn’t let go, insisting on inspecting the rest of her body for any new place where she may have cut herself, until she used all of her strength to finally push him to the floor. Sobbing, she clutched her robe together while he sat in front of her, silent tears running down his face.
One second he was on the floor, anguish marking his face, the next he was on his feet, moving around the room. Frozen with uncertainty, she watched as he picked up his shirt and grabbed his keys. He was preparing to leave. “Tristan, stop. Please stop.” He was walking out and it took every bit of strength she possessed to stand between him and the door. “Tristan, stop. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, yes you did,” he said, his voice quivering. “I have to go. I can’t be here.”
“Just stay. Let me explain–”
“If being around me makes you want to cut yourself, I can’t be here. I can’t be with you. You need to stay the fuck away from me.” He picked her up and moved her out of the way before storming out.
“Tristan!” she screamed after him in the hallway. “Tristan, please! Come back.”
He didn’t turn around, he didn’t stop, he marched towards the stairwell and left without looking back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Few hours later Vesper turned up in Tristan’s penthouse suite but the place was empty. Although a part of her had hoped otherwise, she had instinctively known he wouldn’t be home. She slipped off her jacket, took a seat on the couch. Her heart was wracked with guilt and pain, remembering the horrible words that had come out of her mouth earlier. If he never wanted to see her again, she couldn’t blame him, and maybe if she wasn’t selfish she would simply leave him alone, but she couldn’t. She had to talk to him. If only he would answer her phone calls. If only she hadn’t fucked up earlier and blurted out the very thing he feared the most. If only she’d had the guts to talk to him before everything went to hell between them. And then there was the part of her that was angry at him but she forced herself to ignore it. Now was not the time to indulge in her own feelings.
It was almost dawn when she heard fumbling noises coming from the hallway. Swiping the tears from her face, she approached the door. Tristan was standing at the other end of the hall, kicking off his shoes. As soon as his gaze landed on her, her resolve weakened. Yet again her brain failed her, leaving her speechless in front of him. Although his icy-cold glare made her insides cringe with shame, t
he desperate part of her was glad to hold his attention as long as possible. Minutes passed, growing more laden with tension.
“When I told you to stay the fuck away from me, I didn’t mean show up at my place whenever the hell you want.”
Vesper swallowed an audible breath. “I needed to talk to you.”
A sneer formed across his face. “So you can rub more salt in my wounds?” He threw his keys down on the console table and stormed past her.
She followed behind him, watching him anxiously as he poured himself another drink at the bar. “Do you really think you should have any more? You stink of booze.”
He glanced up at her. “If it bothers you so much, get the fuck out.” He downed the drink in one shot.
Irritated, she reminded herself to be patient. “About what I said earlier, I didn’t mean it. The words came out all wrong, and I know that’s a horrible excuse and I wish there was some way I could take it back but I can’t. I’m sorry.” She paused. “I’m so sorry for hurting you.”
He didn’t respond, instead staring at her with an expression that oscillated between indifference and stark hatred.
“Tristan, talk to me. Say something. Please.”
“What exactly are you sorry about? Telling me you want to break things off or that I want to make you slice your skin?”
She flinched at the harshness of his words. For a second she contemplated lying to him, just telling him whatever he needed to hear to make him feel better, but realised that would only make things worse. It was that very same reasoning that had lead them there in the first place. “It’s not you that makes me want to….” Taking a deep breath, she tried her best to explain. “I’m struggling, Tristan, and I’m trying so hard not to lose control, to not fall back into old habits, but the more I try, the harder it gets, and I just don’t know what else to do.” Tears welled in her eyes, but it seemed to have no effect on him if the callous expression on his face was any indication. If anything, he appeared to be annoyed. “You made me promise not to leave you – ”
“Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to keep your word.”
“But you also made me swear if things were getting bad, I would ask for help. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m here and I’m asking you to help me.”
The shift in him was subtle, the slight unclenching of his jaw barely even noticeable, but she was grateful that at least some of her words were getting through to him.
“If being with me is really that difficult for you, then you’re right. We should break up. It’s the best thing for both of us.”
His words took her by surprise; it was the last thing she expected to hear from him. “I don’t want to break up for good. I just want some time apart so that I can work things out.”
“Oh, so you expect me to just wait, and be faithful, while you take your time in deciding if I’m good enough or not? As great as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”
“I think we should both use this time to fix things.”
“I don’t need to fix anything,” he declared coldly, pouring himself another shot, chugging it. “I’m fine with who I am. If you’re not, that’s your problem.”
Something in Vesper snapped. She stood there, stunned, while he remained completely apathetic to her turmoil. Suddenly the haze of guilt and shame that had blanketed her for so long dissolved, exposing the red-hot anger she’d tried hard to keep buried. For months she’d tried to change, to change for him, so as not to upset him or make him feel insecure or to hurt him in anyway, to the point where she’d compromised herself to such an extent she barely even recognized her own self. The stress of constantly being on guard had made her physically ill and affected her tremendously and he never even noticed. She’d put herself through the wringer and for what? To hold on to some deep, intimate connection she thought they’d shared? It finally dawned on her the love between them had been conditional, something that only worked as long as she behaved the way he wanted her to, didn’t challenge his views, and never expected him to compromise or look at things from a different perspective. “All this time I thought it was my fault, that if I stopped arguing with you and acted the way you wanted me to, you would trust me again. But that was never going to happen, was it? Because you don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, do you?”
“Ah, I see we’re back to blaming me again.”
“It’s not just your fault, it’s mine too, because I let you get away with it.”
His eyes darkened, and his lips twisted into an amused sneer. “Putting on quite the martyr act, aren’t you?”
It was the arrogance in his tone that finally pushed her over the edge. Grabbing the closest thing at hand – a magazine sitting on the coffee table – she hurled it at him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You’re never going to change.” Anger rushed through her veins like wildfire, growing more explosive by the second. “You’ll always be an asshole who makes me feel like shit because, why, I was fucking polite to your father? Because I smiled at him? In your head that meant I was flirting with him? Fucking him? Do you know how sick that is, how horrible? And you’re going to stand there and ask me what’s wrong with me?” Furious, she started pacing. “I tried, I tried so hard to change for you but it was never enough, was it? No matter what I did, how much I bent over backwards for you, it just wasn’t enough.”
“You – ”
“No! You don’t get to talk, not now, not anymore. Do you know how hard it was for me to tell you I love you? I never thought I could, I didn’t think I was capable of it, but I fell in love with you. And I was so happy I could tell you that, finally, because I wanted you to hear those words… but that didn’t make you happy, did it? It pissed you off! Because you figured the only reason I would say it was out of guilt.” She shook her head with disgust. “It wasn’t guilt, Tristan. It wasn’t guilt. It was because I genuinely loved you. But that’s just not good enough, is it?”
“Maybe you should calm down – ”
“Oh no, I’m not calming down. Not anymore. I did it before, I stayed quiet, and I didn’t argue, and I kept my mouth shut, and I buried it, I shoved it down until it started eating me up inside and making me sick but you don’t care about all that, do you? None of it matters as long as I act the way you want, and I don’t get knocked up, and I don’t talk to your father, and I don’t expect you to make any compromises.”
She was heaving with frustration, with an all-consuming madness that had spread through her and refused to lessen. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore all those feelings, not anymore, and she was past the point of caring if her words hurt him. “Why didn’t I accept it when you broke up with me? I mean, all I asked was that you trust me and you dumped me over it, and instead of realizing that was the best thing for me I actually begged you to stay with me, to forgive me. Why the hell was I so stupid?” she asked, the words directed more at herself than him. “I should have just let you go instead of fighting it but I was just so blown away that you could love me. That you saw my scars and still wanted to be with me, but you didn’t, did you? Not really.”
“I love you.”
“Only when I’m following your script though, right?” she spat out. “That’s not love.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just making up shit to justify breaking up with me.”
“No, I’m not deluding myself anymore. I see you, us, this whole shitfest for what it really is and I’m done. I’m done. I’m done with you, with feeling like shit all the time, with always walking on egg shells around you. I’m not doing it anymore.” An unexpected burst of laughter escaped her, the sound a mixture of half-cry, half-giggle. She probably sounded hysterical but it didn’t matter; for the first time in a long while, she felt free. Turning her back to him, she picked up her things from the couch and started walking to t
he door.
“I want my key card back.”
And just like that the swift rush of anger returned, dissolving the modicum of peace she’d achieved a second ago. Taking the set out of her purse, she threw it at him. “Don’t show up at my place, don’t call me.”
He laughed. “You don’t need to worry about that. Frankly, I never want to look at your face again. And I definitely don’t want to deal with any more of your screwed up shit.”
“Go to hell!”
“Fuck off!”
There were so many things she wanted to say but she refused to engage with him any longer, to give him any more power over her, not after months of handing him control over every bit of her life. No, never again. She turned around and stormed out.
*****
By the time she reached home, the sun had risen, bringing with it a new day. Golden rays peered through the curtains, lighting up the living room along with the dust that was scattered around. She used to be so proud of her apartment, small as it may be, and made sure to carve out time between work and school to clean every nook and cranny, to decorate and make it feel like a real home. Yet for months she’d ignored her own place, putting it on the backburner along with other parts of her life because there simply wasn’t enough time to dedicate to Tristan. Oh god. When did she become so pathetic? So stupid? How could she have allowed herself to become like this?
A strong sense of determination kicked in, and she shook her head vigorously. No, never again.
Tired yet in no mood to sleep, she grabbed a broom and started sweeping through, cleaning and mopping the floors until her body screamed with exhaustion. After she was done, she grabbed a box and filled it with all of Tristan’s things. His clothes, toothbrush, the ridiculous and endless supply of hair-care products, his goddamn iPod, she shoved everything in the damn thing. By the time she was done the box was overflowing, along with her temper.
Asshole.
She kicked the box.
Asshole.
She kicked it harder.
