''Love Fades, mine has.''
Four words. It was in that moment that I felt all the fight leave my body. That horrible felling in your stomach as if you'd been falling from a great height and suddenly stopped. For days, well months, I'd been fighting and holding onto the very hope of getting through to the old Dimitri, my Dimitri. Never in a million years did I think that his persistence in keeping me at arms length was because his love might have actually faded. It was always some notion about the greater good, and with that I held on tightly with everything I had, but this changed things. That thought punched me straight in the gut and I'm at a loss of where to go next. He faltered for a second but covered it up before I was even sure I saw it. Great Rose, you're finally going crazy.
My face must have betrayed me as I felt his eyes on my face, and man it felt like he was burning me from the inside out. I finally gazed up into his eyes after what felt like an eternity while still struggling with my internal monologue.
I can tell he was waiting for me to argue some more, and maybe the old Rose would have, 'you can't make someone love you Rose..'
That thought right there came screaming through my heartbroken thoughts and once again stopped me in my tracks. As much as I tried to stop it, it was already too late, a traitorous tear made its way from my eye and down my cheek before I could stop it. Out of instinct I saw Dimitri flinch, like he was about to move but stopped himself, I don't need your pity comrade. With a speed I didn't know I had, I wiped it away as fast as I could with the back of my hand but it was already too late, he had seen it. I wanted to show him that I wasn't the weak child that he was treating me like. Instead I did the only thing left that I could, urged any words to come from my lips.
"I understand, until later Guardian Belikov."
As I started to turn I heard his voice mumble.
"Rose, I'm sorry but it's better this way."
It took everything in me not to whip back around but I managed a small nod, walking away with the words, "no I'm sorry, I thought I'd saved you, maybe I didn't save all of you."
The last thing I saw before turning away a final time was a pained expression across his face.
I started to walk faster as I felt the emotion of what just happened hit me in full force. Once I reached my dorm the tears wouldn't stop. Everything from my time in Russia, leaving the Belikovs, the tension with Lissa, Adrian and finally Dimitri all came out in one hit. Sobs wracked my body and I felt everything I'd been bottling up for months just release and kept coming and going in waves.
Everything started to feel like too much, is this what heartbreak is supposed to feel like? The feeling of loving someone to the point of doing unthinkable things for them, then to have them toss you aside like you meant nothing to begin with. The way Dimitri said his love had faded has me wondering if it was really there to begin with. Stop it Rose, great now I'm arguing with myself and second guessing every moment we had.
Just as I was starting to get worked up again I felt anger and frustration from the bond aimed towards me.
"Rose you can't keep pushing him like this, it's causing 2 steps backwards anytime you're near him. I know you love him but you need to think of Dimitri."
That's all it took for the anger to rise in me again, 'think of Dimitri, is that a joke? All I've done has been for Dimitri, my life has been turned upside down trying to bring him back to me and what do I get? Think of Dimitri!
If that's what Lissa thinks I'm glad she knows me so well, not! Does she even think about how I', feeling? Instead she's treated like the mother of all Saints. Where'd you get the information to turn him back Lissa?!
Great Rose, now you're losing your best friend too.
The need to get space was becoming too great, but the need to do something else entirely cam to my mind. Adrian. I am the worst person in the world, it was then that I realised what I needed to do. I do love Adrian but not in the way he wants me to, and there's no way I can put him through what I'm feeling right now. I need to recover from Dimitri and Adrian needs the time to recover from what I'm about to do.
I walked to Adrians and knocked on the door while I prepared myself to crush the heart of one of the only friends I had left.