Chapter 23
Red Bean Matcha Milk Tea
"Does it bother you?" her first words, whispered, hung in the room like weights
"Does it anger you to see someone else on my arms?" her voice began to shake with each syllable, drops of tears staining her face, which was still downcast. "For years you did this to me and I sat, and I watched."
Gaara looked surprised as she spoke the words she had never had the courage to utter. "I told myself, it's for the job. It's because I'm notindustry material, remember when you told me that?" she finally had the courage to look his way, eyes red and puffy with angry tears, the usual calmness lost to the wind.
"It is-"
"I am not a fucking idiot Gaara!" getting up from the chair she was in, she took a step closer, "I am not naive, I've known. I know you visit Matsuri regularly and I know the girls you have with you are from her."
"I don't know wh-"
"Cut the shit. I went there - when you left me. When you took my hard earned money and locked me out of my bank accounts. I went to her for a place to stay. I met Temari before I entered and she told me everything." her body began to visibly shake with pain as she saw his eyes harden. "I was so miserable with you, I was willing to join the red eye for validation."
His eyes softened at her last words, "There were days I'd overhear you, telling others how beautiful they were, singing to crowds of women about true love and I'd listen and feel nothing - just the pain of your neglect and deceit." a spine chilling smile made its way on her lips for a second as she contemplated all the things she could do to cause him pain. But she sighed as she looked at him, hair red as blood, eyes dark rimmed and hardened jaded eyes. And she saw him again, as a kid, crying by himself on the swings. She saw him - ostracized in the walls of their high school but most importantly, she saw him, her first love.
But there he faded, and all she saw were dark eyes and navy streaked hair. She saw him walking into the store the first time, stacking his monstrous books, watching him play volleyball, take verbal jabs for her frilly apron tease and she saw him, caring for her at her most broken.
"You no longer love me and I, you." her smile faltered as the tears pursued, and he looked away, aware of the truth in her words as she closed the gap between them, "Someone else really likes me, and I think I like him. I am no longer going to second guess myself for you." she stood on her tip toe, and summoning all her ache, pain, bitterness and frustrations, kissed him on the cheek. The contact burned through his skin, her lips like a branding iron, hot and blistering.
"Goodbye Gaara." she placed the metal key she had held onto in his palms, walking away, finally saying goodbye to the life she once had.
AN: We're closing in!