So many of my awesome stories updated this week they shamed me into doing the same! Check them out in my faves.
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Hope is the last thing to die, but it should be the first thing we should kill. We should drown it in tears and let it burn in the rage that scorches the center of our hearts. Just to have it rise from the ashes.
"You promised…"Quiet words spoken in the dark.
Such a stupid promise. I make my way back to the kitchen, and catch the light glinting off the damp floor and the ceramic chips I didn't manage to pick up.
As much as there was light between us, there was also darkness. I couldn't find it in me to explain away his dark moods and stony silences that sometimes claimed him. We had our bad days, oh yes.
"You said it! We both did!" he shouts. "I won't go to another movie without you. That was it."
"Yeah, I get that," I say, borderline patient. "But—"
"So that little promise, it meant nothing to you?" His face flushes with indescribable anger. For a second, it makes me afraid, before I realize that there is something else underlying this rage. And not knowing what it is makes me finally lose my temper too.
"It was one movie, for fuck's sake!" I scream back, my calm demeanor gone. "She's my mother, what was I supposed to say?" I start walking towards him, equally as angry.
"No! You say no! That you are keeping a promise to me!" Edward turns his back to me and paces back and forth away from me. A stupid promise, I think, and then I'm seeing red.
"I can't say that to her! What is she going to think?" Now I'm shouting; this is turning into an fight again.
At this, he turns to me and strides forward. I stumble back and he catches me before I fall, pushing me into a wall. He places his hands next to my face, leaning into them as he gets closer. His breath is hot and his eyes are wild as he stares into mine.
"You tell her that you love me. That you are keeping a promise to me, no matter how stupid." His tone is now low and calm, and infinitely more dangerous. I'm not afraid of him hitting me, but I am afraid of him leaving me, so I lash out.
"I'd rather speak to you, and not see you, than hear nothing from you. I'd rather you tell me you hate me, than have you feel nothing for me. I'd rather have you like this, halfway, than not have you at all. I'd rather you hurt me, damage me, destroy me, than feel nothing at all.
So why are you still here? Why are we still here?" I shove my hands into his chest. He doesn't budge, but his hands drop from the wall. Edward doesn't answer my question. I feel he is one beat away from walking out the door. My body reacts, and I reach out and slap him. Hard.
The crack resounds in the stony silence that follows, and the imprint of my hand stands out against his skin. His green eyes find my brown ones; I reach out again, this time to soothe the hurt I caused, but he takes my hand roughly by the wrist. He pulls up my other hand as well and pins them against the wall. His whole body presses into mine.
"For all those coffees you haven't drunk. All those sidewalks we haven't covered. All those movies we haven't seen. The mornings we haven't been. All those times I haven't held your hand. The ways we haven't danced. The tears we haven't cried," Edward's voice half-snarls, half-murmurs into my hair. "The cookies we haven't eaten. The cities we haven't visited. All those times I haven't held you. The songs you haven't sung. The nights we haven't slept. The afternoons that haven't rained. All those poems I haven't yet written you. The skies we haven't searched for, the moons I haven't found you in, the kisses we haven't shared. All the words I haven't said… that's why we're still here. Why I'm still here."
I stand at the sink again, my feet aching with the shallow cuts. I stare out the window, at the cheery magnolia tree bobbing in the breeze. He knew how I loved magnolias. I wonder if I'll be able to get away today, but there probably won't be enough time.
The sounds coming from the upstairs bathroom have stopped, and I think I hear him in the bedroom as he finishes his morning routine. I hope against hope that he'll still be awhile in there. I don't want him to see my face, tear-stained and lost, a face that clearly grieves for something he cannot possibly know.
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