Page 86 of Love Harder

He never avoided my questions.

However, the more he explained, the angrier I got.

Trigger after trigger slapped me in the face, and my heart was screaming at me to abort this mission before we got hurt again.

I didn’t understand why he chose to do what he did.

Perhaps he didn’t feel what I thought he did.

Perhaps he was just waiting for the next best thing to come along.

Or perhaps I’d never find anyone to see me for who I really was.

Tears welled, but no more.

It’s hard being mad when the cause is right beside you, trying to make amends.

I needed space away from him.

It was too much.

I wanted to believe him.

But I had believed the others, which is why I didn’t believe him.

They lied.

They all do.

They may have meant it at the time, but it was never enough in the end.

I left the room and sat in my sanctuary, where words saved me time and time again.

He called out to me. But each attempt to remedy things just made me feel worse.

It felt as though every single ex who lay dead and buried rose from the dead, haunting me with their memories.

I knew love had hurt me, but I didn’t realize how much so until now. I had an amazing man putting in the time and the effort, and here I was, crying over something that didn’t exist.

The harder I tried to see reason, the harder it got to breathe.

Feelings of rejection and self-worth threatened to strangle me because this would end the way it always had.

Why was he different?

I was the chaos.

He was the calm.

But he would never tame my storm…no one ever would.

He would often mention that after some months, he would be leaving the state, even the country.

It was Switzerland all over again.

Was I just someone to fill in the time until he left?

He came into my office to see if I was okay. I could see it all over his beautiful face that he was upset.

---