There were so many eventualities I imagined when I broke up with Chloe Beale, so many scenarios I played out, and possibilities begging to become a reality. Nothing however could prepare me for the loneliness I would feel when I finally chose to leave my wife. I thought I knew loneliness in our avoidance, I thought my waking up and leaving early only for her to be working a night shift was the same as being truly alone. I thought my never touching her skin the way I used to with a longing, a lustfulness that I found hard to bite back at the most inappropriate of times was loneliness. I thought that not feeling her hot breath against my skin as she moaned my name in that perfect moment of pleasure when the world fell apart around us meant that I was lonely. It turns out I was wrong. Beca Mitchell DJ Extraordinaire and woman in complete control of every aspect of her life couldn't possibly have gotten something wrong could she?
It was difficult to forget all of the moments, as hard as I tried to convince myself that I had been living a life I wasn't happy with the happy memories fought through stronger. Forced me to remember the tug of a smile that I refused access to my lips but never the less found a way to creep through my barriers as I smiled so wide my teeth made a rare appearance, a smile far broader than my usual smirk and it was her who brought it out, the one woman who made me forget my cockiness and witty remarks and turned me into a stuttering ball of half attempted words. Because it didn't matter to Chloe if I couldn't find the words on the tip of my tongue as the blush burned my face and I ducked my head to hide my embarrassment she would always be beside me to lift my chin and kiss away the red of my cheeks. To pull me in close and mutter the answer to every half asked question I could never quite finish.
I very rarely saw her smile falter; rarely did I see the glimmer leave her eyes, unless of course she was confronted by the harm of a fellow human, a person weak and unable to fend for themselves. Her compassion knew no bounds. She would pull a stray dog from a pile of rubbish in an alley way as one may pull a child from the rubble of his collapsed house following an earthquake. Regardless of the context or the difficulty of the task at hand the spark within her eyes would survive and burn with a different fire, one of determination and maybe that is what I was to her, a stray she thought she could house and love.
It wasn't until I saw the fire finally leave her eyes that I realised to what extent I had broken Chloe Beale. She had fought for me, lived through me as though we were one and then in what felt like a short lived flash of happiness. We were left in darkness as nothing as her eyes saddened and she swallowed the lump forming in her throat, as I tried to reach for her and tell her that she would find someone new. Someone who appreciated her the way I didn't because that's what she deserved, someone who would look at her as I used to, someone who would love her the way that she loved, unconditionally. I saw the single tear escape her eye as she fought to not show me she cared, to act as though the woman with more heart than a thousand people had no emotions. She tried to hold in her cries as I caused more damage with my words than any physical pain could ever cause. It's indescribable really. The need I feel to fix my mistake because that's what it is a mistake, a stupid mistake. I glance down at my hand for a moment spinning the ring that I couldn't bring myself to take off. Maybe I knew as the words left my mouth, as I walked out of the door and drove to my dad's house that I didn't mean it, how could I know the gravity of my decision when I made it? It wasn't wrong really, to regret. To want to take back the tears and the words and to go back to a time when I appreciated her for what she was worth.