You really should just go home. Entertain yourself. Distract yourself from the memories, the might have been's; the possibilities. It's better that than stay here and do something else; something worse.
Like you haven't already fucked it up. Like letting her kiss you wasn't the biggest mistake of your life. Because now you can't be friends, that much you know.
You wish it wasn't so.
But everything's been twisted and warped because you love her. You love her; you're not in love with her.
You don't know how to tell her. You don't know how to say it. You don't know how to shelter her; you just don't know.
You love her, telling her you can't be with her will hurt her.
You hate hurting her. You hate yourself when you know that you're the cause of those intense eyes wallowing with tears, when you're the reason she can't sleep and won't eat.
You'll loathe yourself at the end of this.
You wish it was different; with all of your heart, you yearn to be the one who deserves her, the one who could make her happy. You want to be the recipient of lazy, good morning smiles. You want to be the one she holds onto for dear life when nothing else feels real.
It chokes you up that you can't.
As if a plane crash were timely; there's no good time for bad news. Rip the band-aid off all at once, make it a quick sort of pain, the kind that she'll be able to get over easily. Those four words get stuck in your throat because you don't want to say them. They fight you every step of the way, refusing to come easily, refusing to back down. Finally you manage to get them out.
"I don't love you."
You watch the wreckage burn and blaze as your world collapses. You were her hiding place, her safe harbour, and now you're worse than anyone else.
You swore that you'd be there for her, you swore you'd never leave, but now you're joining everyone else who has ever left her. Now you're the worst one of them all because you've betrayed her.
It is so easy to read the heartbreak and the anguish sprawled across her haunting face. You want to take it back, but you can't. You try in vain to make it easier for her.
"Listen to your friends and leave me alone. I'm just a girl. I'm drunk; I'm thirty-six."
You can see it in her eyes that she's not buying it. Her eyes flicker, like they think she still has a chance.
It shatters your heart to break hers. Your eyes plead with her, your face crumples into despair.
"I don't want to hurt you anymore."
She knows you. She knows when you're telling the truth, when you're lying. Her eyes widen at the realisation that you're completely genuine, in direct contradiction to the harm you're wreaking on her heart. They can't contain her tears; salty rivulets cascade down her cheeks and you have to restrain yourself; you have to fight the urge to wipe them away and kiss the tracks they've made across perfect skin.
"Don't waste your tears on me now, pretty girl."
You try to smile at her, to convey that you are so completely sorry that you can't be what she needs, but it comes out more like a grimace. You swallow loudly, your heart hammering away in your chest. You want to take her hand in yours, but through sheer willpower your arms stay by your sides as she falls apart in front of you.
"When I hate myself for letting you go, you can be the one to say 'I told you so'."
It's an empty promise. You already hate yourself for doing this to her and she'd never stoop so low as to gloat in such an unattractive manner.
"I'm sorry," you whisper into the air between you. All of a sudden you wish you were murmuring the words against her hair, letting your voice envelope her ear as you take back everything you've said, as you make everything better for her.
You take a step back and she doesn't move to stop you.
"I'm so, so sorry," you say, and then you flee the scene of the crime, escaping the situation but trapping yourself in the emotional decline.
When you get home, you grab the bottle of scotch from its hiding place and you prove your words true.