The Broken Pieces Left Behind

Chapter 27

"Okay! What's going on and where have you been?" It was Erin's voice coming loudly and annoyed from the hallway. My door flew open. "I have been....calling you."

Her voice trailed off and I just pressed my face into my pillow. She no doubt was looking at the mess that my room was now - my room was never a mess - until her gaze landed on me.

"Ohmigod," she rushed to my side and pressed the back of her hand to my forhead. "Are you sick? Hurt?"

Yes, I was hurt, just not physically. I shook my head and sat up. My hair was probably a mess and my face I knew was puffy, my eyes red and gritty. I pushed my fingers through my hair - it got caught in the tangles - as she wandered to the window and pulled the curtain aside, letting in the light.

Erin pursed her lips again and moved to me again. "What's going on?"

My eyes clouded over but I wouldn't allow myself to cry again. I pressed my fingers to my temples feeling a headache pulsing in my brain. "Jack and I broke up."

"Uh, oh, I thought, but weren't, " she inhaled. "I thought things were going good."

I nodded, "It was and that the problem."

"How was that a problem?"

"Because he wants things from me that I can't give him."

"I don't understand? Is he pressuring you into doing something that you're not ready for? Is this about sex?"

I shook my head. "Its nothing like that."

"Then what is it like?"

She seemed genuinely confused but she took one look at me and just folded herself beside me. I must've really looked like a pitiful mess.

I was good at pretending. That was a generally true statement, I just didn't find out how well I was at it, at hid my feelings until that week.

I had managed to remain blank and numb to most things.  Sure it hurt anytime my gaze landed on Jack but I didn't show it.

It was like going through the motions of things. I was there. Except I really wasn't there.

I could sense Erin's gaze on me, hard and concerned but she still hadn't braced me about the subject and for a little while it seemed like she wouldn't.

Someone was incessantly knock on yhe front door. I sighed and dragged my body off my bed to answer it. Surprise nearly felled me when I saw who was standing in front of me.

"Jack?"

He barged into the apartment. His eyes were shadowed, now that I was closer I could see the signs of tiredness on his face. He ran his fingers through his hair before raising his eyes to mine. "What am I doing here Becca?"

My brows creased in confusion and I hesitantly answered. "I don't know."

"That's just it, neither do I." I could hear the frustration in his voice and I desperately wanted to hold him, but I just folded my arms across my chest, it acting like a shield, my fingers digging into my biceps. "I have been waiting for the entire week, hoping that you'd come knock on my door and tell me that you made a mistake in breaking up with me.  But you won't will you?"

I studied him unsure.

"I feel like such an idiot. Falling in love with a girl that won't even open up to the possibility of even feeling the same way about me, simply because she doesn't want to. Because she refuses to take a chance on us, on me."

I wanted to stop him. To reach out and tell him that I did love him. To smooth away the worry that creased his brow. Tell him that he was wrong, but I didn't I just stood quietly willing my tears not to fall.