Title: Break
Summary: Plotless for the most part. Just an angsty piece, looking into the dark destructive yet epic force of nature that is Jate.
He was not supposed to be the one to break her heart.
He was the good guy. The respected doctor with diplomas framed on his walls and medical journals organized chronologically on his shelves. He was the safest choice, the one who will buy the diamond ring, get down on one knee and propose to her under the moonlight, marry her in a fancy hotel with ice sculptures on every table. He was the one who she was supposed to move into a white picket fence house in the suburbs with, have two perfect children who had straight A's in school and played soccer in the afternoon.
He was not supposed to the one to break her heart.
But then again, she was not supposed to fall for him.
She was the wild one, running free since the minute she knew how to balance herself on two instead of four. She was the untamed one, the one who'd grab a backpack on a whim and go hitch hiking across the country, accept a drink from the least trustworthy looking stranger in the most run down of bars. She was the one with a drawer full of fake ID's and who could not stay in the same place two nights in a row. She was the untamable, having her first drink at twelve and stealing cigarettes from her mother's purse at thirteen. She was the one with more mug shot pictures than Facebook profile pictures.
She was not supposed to fall for him.
She was the one who was supposed to break his heart.
Those who knew him looked at him strangely and talked behind his back. A doctor like him should not be with a girl like her. He knew what they said, he had heard the word gold digger, and he had heard the word con artist, and he had heard the word pregnant. His own mother did not approve. But none of it was true, there's more to her than you think, he would say, and he did not care if they believed him or not.
Her friends looked at her awkwardly when they found out, asked her what her endgame was and she just shrugged and said, there's just this something about him. They laughed and asked her what she was on. She wasn't the "date the good guy" type, not with her list of exes including a bank thief and a con man. They'd pester her for hours but she would just smile, her mind wandering to the memory of his lips against her skin and soon their voice would fade away.
They were a recipe with all the wrong ingredients. And everyone had their money on them to fail.
But somehow, they made it work. To them, it was magic. It was heaven. Two young people, completely different, or so it seemed to everyone, madly in love. As different as they were, it became clear pretty quickly. They were two pieces of a puzzle fitting together perfectly in a way that no other two could.
They made it work, for a while, but then they fell.
And when the fell they crashed.
And when they crashed, they crashed hard.
She was not supposed to fall for him. He was not supposed to make her the center of his world.
But she did, and he did.
He was not supposed to break her heart. She was not supposed to let him possess her heart.
But he did, and she did.
They don't remember how it started or what triggered it, who started it or who said the first word, who threw the first plate or who threw the first blame. But the broken porcelain was scattered across the room, and the blood on the floor next to it was hers, mixed with his.
They both remember the last words though, said at the same time because they always finished each other's sentences anyways, maybe we should take a break. Before either of them could weigh the true meaning of these words, he was tossing a worn out old duffel bag in the backseat of his car. He actually drove a truck, bug, bulky and loud, and she thought maybe she should have seen that as the first sign that he was not the Boy Scout everyone thought he was.
Her hand was wrapped with a bandage and he had one on his forehead, two pieces of bandages torn from one piece of fabric. Just the way they were.
He got into his car and allowed one quick glance back towards the front door. She met his gaze, a dare, a challenge floating between them.
Neither one of them said they were sorry even though the words danced along their tongue. But they were stubborn, both of them, and they would rather suffer than say those words. For now. Or so they thought.
She cried through the evening, onto the early lights of dawn, the shards of broken silverware cowering the corner where they left them. He drove to the closest bar, paid the bartender enough to make sure he did not see the bottom of the glass all night.
His so called friends did not go easy with he "told you so"-s.
She was not good enough for him.
She was always going to break his heart.
Her friends told her she was better off.
He was too boring for someone like her.
He could never keep up with her, he would cage her.
They would just nod, appreciate that their friends were just trying to make them feel better and go on with their lives; or rather not to go on.
She took up knitting. He took up drinking. She knit what her friends called "world's longest, most crooked scarf" which she chose to make in burgundy. He always looked good in burgundy.
He took up drinking. He drank every day, every afternoon, every night until the bartender was his best friend and drove him back to his apartment on more than one occasion.
It's four months, eight days, fifteen hours and sixteen minutes after that fateful night that he stops his car in front of her house; their house. He sits there, staring at the all too familiar front door, for twenty three minutes he just sits in his car, while she watches through the window.
When he finally gathers the courage to walk up those four small steps, she opens the door for him, dressed in one of his shirts because he never picked his stuff up and she never bothered to send them to him. They're not sure who apologizes first, or if anyone apologizes at all. All that matters to either of them is that forty two minutes later, their tired, sweaty bodies fall down onto the bed in unison, panting, chests heaving and out of breath.
They fall asleep, heads on the wrong end of the bed, sheets crumpled by their feet and when she wakes up he is already in kitchen, preparing coffee.
She doesn't know what to say when he turns around to face her; they didn't exactly say much the night before.
She doesn't know what to say, but he does.
Marry me, Kate.
Because he was not supposed to break her heart.
And she was not supposed to fall for him.
But he did and she did.
And it was time to do something about it. To fix it. To do what they were supposed to do long ago.
She says yes.