Chapter 5: Midnight Talk
Tristan tossed and turned for an unseeingly endless amount of hours with only a light sleep that veiled him. He finally gave up and opened his eyes. The room was dark and was only illuminated by the little light that came in through the window. His eyes moved around the room, finally settling on a figure sitting in the armchair across from the couch. "What are you doing up, Rory?" He sat up on the couch, turning his whole body towards her.
She merely shrugged, taking a drink from her mug of what Tristan assumed to be coffee. "Couldn't sleep."
"How long have you been there?"
She shrugged again. "I came out about a half an hour after we said 'goodnight'."
Then the silence settled upon them, both growing more tense with each passing second. "Rory, about yesterday…"
She let out a loud sigh; she knew that this talk was going to happen, she just didn't know it would be so soon. "Yeah?"
"Why did you do it?"
She stayed quiet for a few minutes, trying to find the right words to explain why she did do what she did. "I just-I couldn't take the fighting anymore, Tristan."
"That's why you broke up with me?" His voice was so soft, so child-like that it made Rory want to bring him into her arms and hold him, hold him until the pain went away, but she didn't even know if she had that right anymore.
"Every time we would fight, my heart would break more, Tristan. I just can't stand it when we do and even though it hurts this much, maybe it will be good for us to…to spend some time apart."
"I'm sorry that our fighting did this to you, but I can't stay away from you, Rory, I just can't."
This is when she started to let her tears fall. "I can't stay away from you, either, Tristan, but it's what we have to do."
"Can't we just try again? I don't want to lose you," he whispered.
She smiled sadly. "I don't want to lose you either, but if we stayed together, it would have gotten worse, it would have been more painful."
"So where do we go from here?"
She paused for a few seconds. "I don't know, Tristan," she spoke softly. "I just don't know."
