I'll keep breaking my own heart, finding ways to make it out
I'm still not what I wanna be, what more do you want from me?
I'm still not what I wanna be, what more do you want from me?
He hates that he can almost feel the radiating span of her emotions, because it means he’s keenly aware of the way her mood drops. Knows that while he is not in the wrong here, he is the one causing it, and it chafes painfully in an attempt to force him to fix things. That’s what he does, he fixes things, but he can’t do that tonight. Tonight he has to draw a line in the sand and force them to sit on opposite sides to talk about this like adults, no matter how his mind tells him to bend and accommodate to whatever she desires if it means keeping her. He hasn’t lost her yet with all they’ve been through. He has to keep faith that no matter the outcome of the conversation, he won’t lose her now either.
As she sits his thumbs begin to idly trace the knuckles where they rest on the opposite hand. Finally, motion; spurred by the beginning of her words. He doesn’t react to the tentative touch of her fingertips, but he doesn’t pull away either. Mulling carefully over each word of hers, and then his own in turn before he speaks them. “I wish you’d told me,” he manages finally. Still staring at the stark differences between their skin tones, unable to look into her face while he says it, too unused to defending himself and afraid he’d lose his nerve. “Even if you’ve now decided you don’t want to be with him, the night I arrived I was under the impression we -” he cuts off, eyes closing firmly and throat clicking with the force of his silencing swallow. No, he won’t reveal the way it hurt, because they were his own stupid assumptions, and his own fear that kept him from instigating this talk sooner. Intentionally, forcefully, he spreads and flattens his hands to the table so he can’t squeeze them so tightly anymore. “Regardless of what you tell him, we need to…talk. About what we are. Or want.” His words are beginning to fail him now and the frustration of it forces one hand through his curls, gripping idly at them. “So that there’s no more…miscommunication.” Secrets. Betrayals. The things he wants to say but won’t. It was his fault for assuming, that first night, that she was entirely unattached. He knows she has been in open relationships. But she equally knew that he hadn’t. And he hadn’t questioned it in the days since as they wordlessly transitioned into something new, blindly assuming she would defer to his rules around relationships instead of her own. Selfishly. His fault, his fault, his fault. Always leading with his heart instead of his head.
As she sits his thumbs begin to idly trace the knuckles where they rest on the opposite hand. Finally, motion; spurred by the beginning of her words. He doesn’t react to the tentative touch of her fingertips, but he doesn’t pull away either. Mulling carefully over each word of hers, and then his own in turn before he speaks them. “I wish you’d told me,” he manages finally. Still staring at the stark differences between their skin tones, unable to look into her face while he says it, too unused to defending himself and afraid he’d lose his nerve. “Even if you’ve now decided you don’t want to be with him, the night I arrived I was under the impression we -” he cuts off, eyes closing firmly and throat clicking with the force of his silencing swallow. No, he won’t reveal the way it hurt, because they were his own stupid assumptions, and his own fear that kept him from instigating this talk sooner. Intentionally, forcefully, he spreads and flattens his hands to the table so he can’t squeeze them so tightly anymore. “Regardless of what you tell him, we need to…talk. About what we are. Or want.” His words are beginning to fail him now and the frustration of it forces one hand through his curls, gripping idly at them. “So that there’s no more…miscommunication.” Secrets. Betrayals. The things he wants to say but won’t. It was his fault for assuming, that first night, that she was entirely unattached. He knows she has been in open relationships. But she equally knew that he hadn’t. And he hadn’t questioned it in the days since as they wordlessly transitioned into something new, blindly assuming she would defer to his rules around relationships instead of her own. Selfishly. His fault, his fault, his fault. Always leading with his heart instead of his head.
