So, yeah, not sure where this little riff came from beyond being lulled into a false sense of security that Wade wasn't going to really mess things up after they were good all season so far to keep them towing the line. Ah, they'll work them back around to each other eventually, I have faith. If not, I have fanfiction. : )
It shouldn't be like this.
It shouldn't be killing her.
It shouldn't be silently ripping Zoe apart inside just to stand with only the quiet madness of her own mind as company tonight but it was. She couldn't help it. She'd kept it together through the reception but, no more, it seemed.
Slowly, she reached up to methodically pull the elfin circlet from the crown of her head with a measured steadiness that belied the torrent of emotions the maid of honor suddenly had swirling around inside of her like a tornado ready to swiftly slap the unsuspecting earth with its all consuming destruction amid the falsely tranquil cover of night. The all too real feelings that lurked behind her feigned charade of normality, stalked her, taunted her, ruthlessly threatened to rush in, to crash over her, to drown her in the rising tide of anguish that wouldn't be merciful enough to sweep her away into a numbing oblivion.
No, these waves of unwanted sentiment would drag her over the craggy, bloody rocks of self realization. That she'd brought this brutal collision course with crushing devastation upon herself.
If she'd never been weak, never given in to his swaggering Southern charm, never let him slip past her cosmopolitan defenses then she wouldn't be here now. In this painful calm before the emotional storm feeling like her world was about to irrevocably break.
Shatter.
Become brittle, embittered shards of the happily ever after she'd reluctantly let spin out of control with every shared smile, every sweet compromise, every intimate weave of the lives they were building together.
But, now...
Now...
Now, that she was finally standing all alone in her newly renovated cottage with Wade's haunting, mocking touch reaching out to metaphorically hold her in every sweeping brush of paint- every soft hue, every formerly rustic joint and quaint corner- so that Zoe just couldn't ignore it. Not anymore.
Wetness, warm, salty, and all too real finally rolled down her cheeks unchecked.
Maybe, if she'd never loved him, never held him, never confessed her desire to really try for the first time in her life it wouldn't hurt so damn much.
Yet, somehow, Zoe knew that she was lying to herself.
Again.
Even as she listlessly sunk onto the plush bed she'd never share with him again; Zoe instinctively knew she still hadn't reached bottom.
Not... yet.
She'd only skimmed the top of this well of miserable heartbreak and loss but it didn't matter. Zoe would probably still feel something akin to this body wracking grief if she'd never even admitted to anyone that she'd ever let Wade steal even a tiny piece of her heart never-mind recklessly giving him the whole damn thing.
She'd known all about his checkered past but that wasn't what Zoe knew made her a colossal idiot once more.
How could she have been so utterly stupid?
She was supposed to be the smart one, the jaded big city girl, that didn't get conned- that didn't make the same foolish mistakes of all those other silly girls he'd swindled with crooked grins and the lazy promise of passionate affection that sparkled in his gaze- but Zoe knew that wasn't her.
Never really had been.
New York had allowed her to live anonymously behind the defensive walls of her unrelenting career goals, had enabled her to keep people comfortably at bay but stubbornly crossing the Mason Dixon line had somehow stripped her of the habitual slick, protective shell and laid her tender heart all too bare. Left Zoe all too vulnerable to the sense of community that had endearingly snuck up on her- the feeling of finally belonging that she'd blatantly been missing practically splayed her wide open without warning. All too available to a man that her head told her was all wrong for her but every fiber of her being had still forcefully pumped the sure knowledge right to the marrow of her bones so that she couldn't ignore it- that he'd been the right one- so that she couldn't turn even the chance of him, of them, away.
Fancifully breathed life into the idea that she'd somehow regret not taking a chance with him more than the bittersweet concern of any possible failure and, yet, as she curled into herself now, desperately trying to ball all of her hurt up just as easily, Zoe knew that was a lie too.
All she wanted was to go back, to change something, anything, instead of feeling smothered, drained, defeated by the all too painful lesson of truth that kept repeating itself in her personal history if she ever dared to forget it... She'd never be enough.
Not for her mother. Not for either of her fathers.
And, obviously, not for Wade.
The man she unwontedly loved so strongly, so deeply, that she was going to mourn the mirage of him steadfastly beside her for an eternity. He'd leveled her with a single mistake that he prosaically claimed meant nothing to him but meant everything to her because she'd never be able to delude herself again.
She was now caught in a never ending battle, a war with herself; one that Zoe couldn't even fathom how to win. She wasn't practiced at romantic goodbyes because there'd never been a man that touched her enough to really alter her existence in any tangible way before, not even George. She didn't have an arsenal of post break-up techniques that would ease her disillusionment. And, she didn't know how to turn off all that she was now unrelentingly feeling, to dim the merciless love for Wade that still flooded her even while Zoe knew that she shouldn't allow herself to feel even the tiniest spark of emotion for him anymore.
Sure, as a doctor, Zoe knew that there were clinical phases that, eventually, she was likely to pass through but she didn't necessarily want to. She didn't want to think about a future day that even the mere thought of Wade wouldn't stir her tender affections toward him; couldn't comprehend a minute now that might not have her wallowing in the ravaging pain of his betrayal; shouldn't be wishing for a time that things between them finally reached that perfected ideal she'd secretly been yearning for where they...
No. No.
She wasn't going there. Not tonight. Not ever.
And, yet, she couldn't help it as another torrent of loss wracked her because Zoe knew that she shouldn't be hoping that there was some way that what Wade had done would mysteriously evaporate into the broken ether between them; shouldn't be wanting the solace of his arms around her to make her world right again; shouldn't be so many things...
The creak of the wooden floorboards in the foyer brought her pitiful musings up short as Zoe heard the scuffle of his booted feet creeping ever closer to her from behind as he raggedly pled into the still, cold, darkness of her home, "Baby, tell me how I can make this better."
"Go away, Wade," she angrily sniffled not wanting to turn toward him, to reveal yet another vulnerability to him because he'd just hurt her all over again.
"Baby," he desperately tried again. She could hear the low strains of his pained regret, his sorrowful remorse, chock full of the self disdain and loathing that should make her feel a little better but it didn't. It made it all that much worse.
"No," her breath hitched not able to force another false excuse about them probably not working out anyway past her lips again to cover the depths of her devastation. "I can't do this. You need to go."
"Zoe, please, I need to make this right," the word a rusty saw cutting her to the quick.
"There is no making this right," she bitterly whispered into the ever widening chasm between them.
"I'm gonna make you forgive me, prove that you can trust me to be good to you," Wade gritted out unwilling to accept the inevitable consequences of his callous actions. "We're gonna be good together again."
Zoe knew, even as she said the hurtful words that she shouldn't be telling Wade that she hated him because it wasn't true which made her hate herself even more for ever believing, for ever having faith in him, for still...
As his rangy body slipped onto the bed behind hers and his well sculpted arms fell into their rightful place around her, Zoe knew she should be kicking and screaming at him like the vilest of Southern shrews to get him to leave. She should be throwing her pricey accessories and trendy trinkets to shoo him out like she'd seen other women do to him.
Whatever Zoe should be doing, she absolutely, positively, shouldn't be silently hoping that the low keen of his promises would prove true given enough time.
No, she shouldn't be but, somehow, she was.