Page 33 of Taste

“Please, let me go.” I tried keep my voice from breaking. I needed to get away because I knew myself too well. He would hug me and reel me in until I believed every lie he spouted, every word he would end up taking back. Then he would do what he had done from the start, leave me to lick my wounds until he pulled me in for another round of heartbreak.

I couldn’t do this anymore. Wouldn’t. However much my body was screaming for him to hold me. However much my fucked-up brain was begging for him do what he had always done. Hold his body against mine and make everything in the world right. Calm the oceans, align the planets and all that shit. Well, it was all true. It happened whenever Finn Christensen let me close.

Then he would blow up my world like a fucking atomic bomb and leave me sitting in the crater of my life, trying to find that small shred of strength to reassemble myself into a functioning human again. Alone.

I sobbed in self-pity against his shoulder, leant into his neck, my senses overwhelmed by him just being him, still kissing my hair and frantically trying to keep me close.

I couldn’t feel my feet in the stupid boots I was wearing. The wind was blowing right through my skinny jeans.

“Could we please, maybe get out of here?” he asked, his teeth chattering loudly against my cheek. “Would you come home with me? Just to talk. I promise I won’t leave you, well, I can’t since I live there. I have nowhere else to go, so it would be your call. You can leave anytime. I won’t stop you. I’ll do whatever you say. Whatever you want.” Finn’s voice was strong and in some fucked up way soothing, making all those promises he would always fail to keep.

I could tell he was trying to bring some light into this disastrous situation. I was thirty-five years old, and I was crying in the street outside a nightclub, clinging to the man who had just fucked me in public when I should have been punching him in the balls. If this had been me a few years ago, I would have laughed in his face and invited him home for another round of sex without a second thought. Now, though?

I grunted in annoyance at myself as he led me towards the taxi rank on the corner, pushed me into the backseat of a black cab and rattled off his address to the driver, who cast a nervous glance at me.

“Extra charge twenty-five pounds if your pal vomits in car,” the driver sung in a thick accent.

“No worries, mate, he’s not drunk. He’s fine.” Finn leaned over to fasten my seat belt. Like I was an infant. Like I couldn’t look after myself at all.

Well, who was I kidding? Looking at me, I was right where I’d promised I would never be again. And I definitely couldn’t look after myself.

I’d told myself I was going to be strong, rehearsed my lines telling him to fuck right off and leave me alone. I was never going to be weak again and let him convince me this was our fairy tale. We’d never have a ‘once upon a time’ let alone a ‘happily ever after’, and this bloody fairy tale was quickly descending into a mediaeval tragedy. All tears and snot and frostbitten toes.

Still crying, I opened my jacket so I could blow my nose on the hem of my shirt. I couldn’t care less that I was being a disgusting scrap of humanity. I was a depressed slob, and he didn’t give a damn about me anyway, nor did he love me. At all.

He was right next to me, looking out the window as we left the West End traffic behind and headed into the area where he lived, which consisted of neat stacks of apartment blocks around mature trees and closed-up shop fronts on deserted streets. His profile lit up as we passed streetlights, his hand moving to wipe his eyes. There were wet streaks on his cheeks. Tears falling down his face.

Let him bloody cry!the anger in me screamed. I had to bite my bottom lip to stop myself from reaching out for him.

I had no control and was truly a disaster, no strength to finally speak up and say those words. Tell him this would not end well and that whatever we had was over.

I would stay in the car and let the driver take me home. I wasn’t going to come up. I didn’t want to talk. I never wanted to see him again.

Just let this end here. Let’s not hurt each other anymore. Let this be the last time.

Please let me try to start healing from all these wounds.

I followed him out of the car, because my legs didn’t know any better and my head had lost the ability to make any sort of commands. And as he took my hand and walked me across the frosty grass towards the building where he said he lived, my treacherous body released a huge sigh of relief.

MARK

His was a one-bed apartment on the second floor, high ceilings framing the sleek sofa that was littered with papers and discarded crockery. A TV played to itself in the corner, and I could see a small kitchenette behind a curtain. An unmade bed dominated the rest of the room, which was so unlike him, but there was nothing personal here. No pictures on the walls or ornaments or knickknacks of any kind. It was like he was living in an unfinished shell, waiting for the removal van to arrive.

“Sorry about the mess. I usually keep the place tidy, but it’s been one of those days. Do you want tea?” he asked, leaning down to flick on the floor lamp by the sofa.

I shook my head, realising I had been standing there, hugging myself through my jacket, for some time. I didn’t know what I wanted. Well, I did, and those thoughts terrified me.

Still, I didn’t move, and neither did he. We just stood there like fools, me staring at my feet, him staring at me.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have done that…like that. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t blame you for…really…hating me now.”

“I don’t hate you.” Those words sounded old and used. Abused.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Fucking right about that,” I muttered angrily and glanced up to where he was leaning on the arm of the sofa. He looked terrified. Desperate. His fingernails scratched at the fabric; the sound made my teeth hurt.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

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