She leaves, your heart breaks, but you deny it to the point where if asked, you wouldn't know your heart from your elbow.
It was the denial that killed you, broke you in two, that makes you who you are, and prevents you from knowing the other side.
You call her a whore, degrade her in words, trying to force belief on her as much as yourself, but the truth is that you can't grasp how you love something that is everything you despise yet at the same time is something you've always wanted but never knew.
It confuses you, makes you angry, the stubbornness in you is rearing its ugly head, and it's only in your moments of weakness that you slip and reveal the truth.
You love her, and you're not sure how it came to be. And you were too much of a gorram idiot to do anything when you had the chance.
Maybe it was love at first sight, maybe it was the first time you tried to fight her and she fought back, the first time you saw her cock a gun, the first time she soothed an upset Kaylee, or the first pang of jealousy you felt when she left to see a client. You don't know how, but it somehow happened, and now you're stuck.
She's gone and you don't know what to do. You watch documented videos that Kaylee's taken, and run your hands over the trunk she's left in the shuttle, bargaining with yourself not to open it. Hope that she'll reach out to you, because you are too stubborn to be the bigger person.
You'll never know why you didn't say something, but you'll have to live with the regret forever.
You think of her when you lie awake at night, of what could've been, of what should've been, of the thousands of ifs and maybes that concern her, until you are crazed and never want to see her again, but hope that fate has it in the cards so that you do.
This is another battle that you've lost. But this time, you might be losing more of yourself than you care to admit.
Things concerning her never were easy, and you wish that they were. Simplicity is a luxury beyond the two of you. You want to see the world in black and white. Unfortunately for you, all Inara Serra is, are shades of gray.