It's the wrong kind of place to be cheating on you (continued)

The first part was posted a few weeks ago but I left it in this post (in italics) in case you hadn't read it.

My eyes are drawn to the walls that I remember being a different colour, the ceiling that used to have painted stars, the desk that did not used to be there, the windows which still look out on the same view, still let in the noises of the street, of the city. I’m brought back to lying here listening to the city and your calm breathing as you slept beside me, and I know I can’t go through with this, not here, not where I have so many memories, not where you are tied in to all of them, not now even though I know you slept with her, and you don’t think it matters. He walks in with a sly seductive smile, and whispers something, it goes by me because I’m caught up in the realisation that this is not going to work, and this won’t bring me release or pleasure or satisfaction, just pain, pain and a sense of self betrayal. I get up, in a single smooth movement, he moves towards me and I gently grab his arms before they can encircle me. No, is all I say, and I’m lucky, lucky because he lets me go, doesn’t push me doesn’t ask for an explanation just lets his arms drop, and loses his smile. He looks at my face intently and I think he’s going to turn away and leave me here alone with my memories and sense of loss. I’ve let his arms go and wrapped my arms tightly around myself, wishing the events that lead me here wouldn’t keep haunting me. I’m once again lost in my thoughts and don’t realise as he steps closer, don’t realise what he’s about to do till he does it.

He pulls me into him, one hand on my back and the other in my hair as he gently runs his fingers through it. I start crying, a hug when I’m holding back tears always earns that reaction, and I cry into his shoulder. He doesn’t try anything, his other hand staying on my back just holding me to him. I cry because of this too, why I can’t love him, when it is so painfully obvious he is the better choice, he is the one who truly loves me. I cry because he knows me, and would give himself to me and I couldn’t, can’t give myself to him, even now… he just stands there and lets me cry stupidly uselessly mourning the memories and the man who isn’t here with me.

He knows I can’t go on like this, knows as he strokes my hair that it is not enough, that he can’t console my broken heart, can’t mend the extensive damage wrought. He knows what I’ve done, what I’ve tried, to please him, and how I was never enough, how nothing I did was ever enough. He saw as I stretched myself too thin, as I bent over backwards, as I let him break me futilely because nothing I did was ever, could ever be enough. He even knows that now, with the amount I’ve drank, and the amount I’ve cried he could push his luck, and might get lucky, but he won’t. He won’t do anything he knows would hurt me, not if he can help it, won’t do anything to endanger our precarious friendship. He takes me to his place, away from the party, and the debauchery, away from that place filled with memories. Instead of offering me more alcohol he puts on water for tea. I curl upon his couch, cold, and he brings me a blanket from his bed; I cuddle into it and smell him, his safe familiar smell, and I doze. He wakes me up by placing a cup of tea beside me. “Do you want to talk?” he asks. I’m not sure what he expects but I answer with a shake of my head, words feel like too much effort right now.

I look at her, curled up, clutching the cup of tea like a lifesaver…I am so angry, so incredibly angry, seeing her like this so utterly defeated and broken, she didn’t even protest when, coming out from the rain, I peeled off her shirt and pants and gave her a change of clothes. She hadn’t registered the rain as it mingled with the tears that continuously streamed down her face, no longer noticing them. She’s still shivers occasionally and I want to scoop her up in my arms and hold her close to me till her tears subside and the violent shivers stop convulsing her body. Usually I want to do much more than just hold her but tonight I’m just faced with the reality of her fragile frailty, the ease in which some man tore her to pieces. I know somewhere that she is stronger than this that she should be, that the alcohol hasn’t helped her present emotional state, that she’ll be better tomorrow, that she threw a few good punches of her own…I know this, but right now looking at her you wouldn’t know this, and there is a small kernel of doubt buried in the back of my mind, a small niggling voice that is whispering but what if this time is different.

She raises her eyes to me and swallows, no more tears streak down her cheeks and she rubs her eyes. “Stop looking at me like that, like I’m something that can never be fixed, like I’m something pathetic.” She laughs to herself at that, “who am I kidding I am pathetic.” She visibly makes an effort not to start crying again. I have no more self-restraint left, so I sit beside her, pull her into my lap and hold her tightly, she draws a sharp intake of breath when I grab her but doesn’t make a move to free herself, and soon nestles into me. Would that the circumstances that brought us together like this were different. At some point she tries to speak and I push her head back down and hush her, she doesn’t insist on talking, and soon her breathing is deep enough that I begin to suspect she’s asleep. I make a move to either carry her to my bed, or let her lie on the couch but she proves to me she’s awake and earnestly desperately says “don’t leave me, don’t leave me alone.” She holds me, and I stop trying to move. I simply shift, and we both settle a bit more comfortably.