one star down
love is blind when the lights go out,
in a shattered sky we're one star down,
love is blind, lapsley
...
He finds his way down the stairs, blind with tears.
He pushes open the locker room door, grabs his stuff.
He pauses for a moment, his eyes catching the photo stuck to the inside of the locker.
Her face, smiling back at him. He tears it down, and his fist snaps out, connecting with the blue with a dull thud. The metal crumples, his hand screams in pain, but he doesn't care.
Her words are still there, tearing at his insides, corkscrewing into his heart and ripping it to pieces.
He pulls away, sharply, his hands shaking.
The door slams behind him.
…
The night is cold, and he stuffs his hands deep into his pockets and dips his head as he walks along the dark street.
He turns into the driveway, the gravel crunching underfoot.
He pulls the key out of his pocket, but he hesitates in the front step, his hand poised, but he can't do it.
He knows if he goes inside he'll find her stuff, her things and he'll break down.
He feels broken inside as it is, and he doesn't know how to fix it, or whether it is fixable. It's grief, cold and painful eating away at him, for the baby, for Louise, for everything.
He thinks maybe, that he loves her. Despite it all, damn what she said, he loves her. When they first met, what feels like a lifetime ago now, they became friends quickly, and he thought maybe they could be something more, and she always turned him down, and turned him down every time, until she didn't and that night, that was when he knew that that was it.
She was it.
And he thought maybe, just maybe, she felt the same way.
But of course, he now knows the truth.
She never wanted him.
He opens the door, his throat thick with tears and his hand shaking, once again.
…
Her stuff is every where, just like he knew it would be, but he's running on autopilot now. He grabs a box, used to move in her things so recently.
He collects her belongings as quickly as he can, chucking them in without thinking. Her toothbrush, her clothes, her photos, everything he can find.
What he can't strip away are the memories: that morning, before work; relaxing on the sofa the night before, her head on his chest; the night, when he'd nervously brought her home for the first time and she'd kissed him on the stairs and he told her she was beautiful, and she'd smiled at him, and he'd thought it was the start of something special.
Now, tossing her things into a box, anger running through his veins and tears running down his cheeks, he wonders how they've got here.
He just shakes his head and carries on.
…
He goes into work the next day.
Robert stops him before he gets to the locker room, tells him it's not a good idea, the he should go upstairs, to Louise, or at least go home.
He shrugs him off.
"I'm fine," he lies.
"You're not. Go home, Stuart."
He starts to shake his head, but he's so tired, so very very tired, so he concedes and follows Robert's advice.
…
His home no longer feels like home.
He buys beer on the way back, spends a good few hours getting as drunk as possible.
Her things still sit in a box by the door, taped shut.
It's after a couple of hours that he finds it.
It's slipped under the sofa, a soft toy – one he bought a few days ago for a child he will no longer have. In his drunk haze, he hurls the toy against the wall, and then he lashes out, blind fury fuelling his punches – one, two, three, again and again against the plaster until it buckles and splinters. Blood streaks his hand, trickling across his palm.
His energy spent, he slips to the floor, his back against the damaged wall, his mind empty, his hand bleeding, his knees drawn up to his chest, trying not cry.
...
He goes to work again, his eyes glazed from the worst hangover of his life.
Robert's smoking outside, and stops him before he can even set foot in the building.
"Go home," he says, and Stuart is in no mood for a fight so he does.
…
He sleeps for a bit, watches some crap tv, tries to ignore the box by the door.
A knock sounds at the door at around six.
She stands, pale and tired, on his doorstep, and for a moment he thinks maybe, but then she speaks and it all fades. She says she's there for her stuff, so he grabs the box, and takes it out to his car.
He offers to drive her and her things back to her flat. It'll save her the bus journey. She can't meet his gaze, but says yes.
The car ride is excruciating.
It doesn't get any better once they get there.
He carries the box in, and the silence is suffocating in the lift. She still can't look at him, not properly and it hurts him, somewhere deep inside.
He sets the box in her hall and turns away as quickly as possible.
"Stuart?" she calls him back, but this time it's he who can't meet her gaze.
"What happened to your hand?"
Not sorry, or come back or anything he actually wants to hear.
He looks down at his hand, at the dark red cuts and purple bruises, still fresh, still angry.
He shrugs.
"It fucking hurts, you know?"
He turns and starts walking away before he can hear what she has to say in reply.
…
He tosses and turns in bed that night.
Haunting him is a daydream, one that used to fill him with joy, but now it kills him.
Him and Louise, their baby girl (it was always a girl, in his head) and a quiet night in.
He smiles, Louise smiles, everything is happy.
He laughs, but there's nothing funny about it.
He rolls over.
His sleep is full of nightmares.
…
Robert lets him go back to work after a week.