you not being here. Please, don’t go.” His voice broke, a single tear rolled down his cheek as he begged me to stay. I refused to look into his eyes but the sight of another tear rolling down his cheek in my peripheral vision, started the flurry of my own waterworks.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Corey, please.” The words choked out but he shook his head furiously.
“You’re the one making it hard for us! You’ve been fighting me since day one, for whatever reason! I’ve been trying to prove to you that we can make it and recently you’ve let yourself believe it too. I can see it in your eyes that you feel it too, Danielle. You want me just as much as I want you.” All I could do was continue looking at everything but him. The sight of him was enough to send a shooting pain through my heart but the words he poured out onto me were my downfall.
“We’re just friends, Corey.” Even I didn’t believe the words. “Damnit, Danielle! When are you going to get it through your head that we have never just been friends!” His hands reached out and gripped my chin forcing me to look at him. “I am in love with you, Danielle Hamilton. I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you since the moment you walked into my bar, and I’m even more sure I always will. For so long I convinced myself that I could accept you as a friend and whatever else you wanted. But I can’t anymore, Danielle. Don’t go back to New York, baby.” Tears clouded my vision but I watched as Corey lowered his mouth to mine.
As much as I told myself to push him away—I couldn’t. My tongue danced with his while my hands fisted his shirt into my hands. I squeezed my eyes shut and cut off the exit for the million or so more that threatened to expose themselves. Corey wrapped his arms tight around my body, as he pulled me into him as if he couldn’t get enough. The millions of different things I felt during our absence swirled around us. Pain, agony, longing, desperation, passion…love. All surrounded us, taking my breath away and leaving me nothing but an empty shell.
I’m not sure how long we stood that way but the pain ripping through my chest told me, I was making a mistake. Whether the mistake was to leave Corey or to turn down my return to the city—I’m not sure. So without thinking, I chose the one I thought I needed to let go.
My hands shoved hard against Corey’s shoulders, until he stood a foot away from me. Chest heaving, while his lungs gathered in the loss of oxygen; his swollen lips parted for more. I looked into his eyes and wrapped my arms tight around the gaping hole in my chest.
“We’re over, Corey. I’m going home, just as I planned to do all along.”
“Are you telling me that you have found absolutely nothing to make you stay?”
“No.” I whispered out.
“Say it, Danielle!” He yelled. “Tell me this meant nothing. Tell me that I am nothing to you.”
My eyes locked onto his; my throat burned with the pain of holding back my sobs. “This was just sex, Corey, and now it’s time for me to leave this black hole of a place, and return to my life!” Corey didn’t move for an immeasurable length of time, before he finally found something in my expression that made him choose his path.
“Go ahead, run away. It’s all you know how to fucking do! Go find some foolish little prick to treat you like shit, because I sure as hell can’t make you happy!”
Thankfully I didn’t crumble to the chilled ground in a mess of tears until after Corey stomped away from me. I tried to convince myself that what I was doing was the right thing. This was never going to work and it was better if Corey moved on starting now. At least that’s what I made myself believe.
The truth was—I already regret letting him walk away but going after him was not an option.
Destruction
The next week was worse than the previous one. My roses were slowly wilting away, losing the prominent beauty they had when they first came in. Sadly, they symbolized exactly what Corey and I now were. A beautiful thing can’t last. It has its shining moment, leaving everyone breathless but in the end it fades