Page 31 of Versions Of Us

“You’re doing it again. You’re running scared.” I feel hot tears burning behind my eyes, but they aren’t sad tears. They’re tears of fury. “If you do this Alex, it’s for good. I can’t keep waiting for you to be the person I need you to be.”

There’s a long pause before he answers. “I know.”

“You know? That’s all you’re going to say?” I scream into the phone.

He doesn’t reply.

“Is there someone else?” I ask, my voice lower now.

I find my answer in his silence.

“What about the note you left? The things you said?” My chest starts to heave in panic, my anger transforming into despair.

None of this makes any sense.

None of it.

I must still be asleep. Stuck in some sort of twisted nightmare. How could the man that professed his love for me a mere twenty-four hours ago be telling me that there’s no longer room for me in his life?

I hear him inhale before he expels a long, drawn-out breath. Then he confirms my fears with four simple words.

“That was a mistake.”

“Where the hell are you?” I manage to whisper.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah,” I say, the fire suddenly leaving me, the blood in my veins turning to ice. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

“Kristen…” he begins, almost pleading. “I want to explain, but right now…”

“Don’t bother.”

We both go quiet for a moment. I hear him swallow, take in another shaky breath, but he doesn’t try to say anything else.

There are a million things I should probably be saying, endless questions that need to be asked. But I don’t have the energy to persuade someone to come back to me when they’re clearly intent on running.

My voice comes out cold, hard as stone. “Fuck you, Alex.”

I end the call and throw the phone with all the energy I can muster. It slams into the overhead kitchen cabinet, falling to the ground in pieces. I can’t help reacting with violence. I’m hardwired to lash out in upsetting situations. A trait Henley and I apparently have in common.

I’m still pacing the room when my stare comes to rest on the drum kit in the corner. I take one of the dining chairs and lift it way above my head, then launch it forward. It hits the snare drum with a loud clang and falls onto the bass drum, forging a crack through the centre of the head. I pick up another chair and repeat the process, then turn back into the kitchen.

The spoon I used to scoop the ice cream lies next to the sink, reminding me again of how considerate Henley had been last night.

How could he be so convincingly excited for our future?

For his promotion at the tavern?

Why would he ask me to move in with him?

And why stock the freezer full of my favourite ice-cream?

He’s programmed to self-sabotage, to run from things when they’re at their best. Running from his promotion at the tavern was one thing. But to run from me? The one constant in his life?

I slide down onto the hard, tiled floor, curling in on myself, the whiplash agonising. I’ve fallen from the highest high to the lowest of lows.

Our world, a perfectly stacked set of dominoes all lined in a row, crashing to the ground in one swift move.

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