"What do you mean you gotta go?"
I know that tone, I've heard it many times before from many different women.
"Where do you think you are going?"
"You were just over there!"
"What about me? When are you going to have time for me?"
"Who's the girlfriend? I'm beginning to wonder."
I calmly pull my pants back on, I know how its going to end. It always ends the same way.
I interrupt the silence as I slide my zipper up. There's no helping it, they always make the same mistake.
"You're really just going to leave like this?"
Her tone cuts. I know what is next, she's finally at her end. Now it will be the end of us, but I'm helpless to stop it. As much as her tone, the tone of a distraught lover, cuts into me...His is worse.
His voice, his melancholy stabs right into my soul. The very soul thought lost until I met him.
Her long black locks hang down, I know what her face will look like...I don't want to face it, but a man can't run. I look up into her sad eyes...they plead me, beg me to stay. Oh how I wish I could...I think I'm in love with her. She's amazing beyond her perfect looks...could maybe even be 'The One' everyone talks about. I don't know, I just know my heart breaks watching the little droplets of tears form under her eyes.
But not even those tears could move me like his silence alone does.
"Hello?" I only answer because I see his number.
"..." I know that silence, he's regretting calling me.
"Tablo ah?" I question, knowing full well his silence is more meaningful than what most people could hope to get across with words.
"...Mithra...I...ah..." He's hurting, I can hear it in his voice. Bad, but still he is hesitant to ask. I never deny him, never have and I never will...and yet...and yet he never asks.
But with me...He doesn't have to.
"Tablo ah...where are you?"
"..." He doesn't want to answer, he's close by. I wish he would just ask, he must know by now how I...
"I'm...outside...your door..." Oh shit.
"Tablo?! Shit man what's wrong? I'm not even at home right no-" He interrupts me, I should have known he would.
"Oh. You must be with Eunjin. I'm sorry."
Click.
I squeeze my eyes tight for a moment burning her image into my heart...I know it'll be the last time I see her.
"I'm sorry." I say it and mean so much more by it, and she knows it. I watch as the hurt in her eyes grows...and only I am to blame.
"I'm sorry...I..." I almost say it...I've never told a girl that I loved her. I've never openly said it to her, I want to...
I wish it would make a difference...
But instead I lower my eyes, I'm unworthy of saying it, unworthy of claiming to love and cherish her when I do nothing but hurt her.
"I'm sorry." I say one last time before I leave her apartment. The sound of her crying carries through before the door can swing shut. Her pain, the pain I caused, cuts into my heart.
I Am A Piece Of Shit.
Tablo's out there...alone and hurting. Needing me to come and save him from himself.
I leave without a backward glance.
