Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter Forty One

Henna....

When Danny solemnly strolls back into the living room, I decide to just leap right into things. I need to hear from him, what I already know. "You're leaving me, aren't you?"

Danny is soon right in front of me, his face taut with an uneasiness. "Henna, I'm not leaving you...at least not in the way that you think." He brings his hands up to mine, holding them tightly with his assuring fingers. "I still want us to be together."

My eyes look down at his chest, the chest that I always imagined falling asleep against. "When are you leaving?" Comes my fractured and quiet question.

With his thumb stroking my hands, Danny's answer is glazed with nervous guilt. "That depends on you."

My sad eyes glisten with beckoning tears as they slowly look back at him. "Nothing depends on me, Danny. You have made up your mind to return back to Coulsdon, so it doesn't really matter what I think, does it?"

Bringing our entwined hands affectionately up to his chest, Danny's own eyes are now beginning to glaze with tears. "Of course it matters. You matter to me." He blinks, slowly and sadly. "Nathan needs me, Henna. Dad has had a minor stroke, so Nathan is being left to do everything. I need to go back for just a little while." His fingers clasp tighter around mine as he quietly goes on. "Louisa lied about being pregnant. There was never no baby. It was all a twisted lie. Now Louisa has gone and because of dad's stroke, everything will be different." Blinking back his tears, he tries smiling them all away. "If I thought you'd say yes, I'd ask you to come?"

Danny's words cause an ache inside of me. A constant, fearful ache.

"I wish I could, but I think my life is here." The thought of leaving my dad, is just too unbearable a thought to even consider. And yet, the thought of being without Danny, is just as equally unbearable to think about. Nothing in life seems fair anymore.

Seeing tears slip slowly down my cheeks, Danny quickly envelopes me in his comforting arms. "Just because I can't stay in Bristol and you can't come to Coulsdon, doesn't mean that we still can't be together, Henna." His embrace becomes stronger, more assuring. "You can come to me when you can, and I will come to you when I can."

Danny is trying to make it all sound better. He's trying to make it all sound so simple. But it isn't better. And it isn't simple. I'm an all or nothing kind of a girl. If Danny and I are to be together, then we must be just that...together. "It could work, but then it probably won't work." The negativity slips from out of my downturned mouth. It slips out so hushed and so pessimistically. 

But Danny draws back, insisting that I hear all that emphatically now comes out of his mouth. "We can make it work, Henna. We love each other, so we'll make it work."

I wish I had the same positivity. The same optimism. But I'm all out of positivity and optimism. My heart is breaking. It's breaking and willing me to pull away from the source that is breaking it. 

So, I do pull away.

I pull away from the deeply painful source and I pull away quickly.

"I think it's best if you leave today, Danny. I can't handle being with you, knowing that you're about to return to Coulsdon. I can't face having our first Christmas together, knowing that it will only end up being our last. I think you should just leave now. There's no point in dragging this all out." My whole body feels numb, terrorised by the silent devastation that is tearing its way right through me. Danny tries to hold me again, but it physically and emotionally hurts to be near him. It hurts to be breathing in the same air as him. I need to fall apart. I need to fall apart without him being here to see it. "Please, just go." My plea is pitifully quiet. Pitifully broken.

Danny remains in front of me. All I can hear is his stressed and anxious breathing. I sense that he doesn't know what to say or what to do. I can't look at him. Not even for a second. It would hurt too much to see his face. It would hurt too much to see the strain stretched tensely across it. So, I turn to walk away. I turn, to heartbreakingly leave. "I'm going to go out for a bit, it'll give you time to pack and go."

As I pick up my keys and put one sad foot in front of the other, Danny is soon desperately cuddling me from behind, holding me so tightly with his anguished arms as he whispers into my ear. "I'm not giving up on us, Henna. I won't ever give up on loving you." His cheek presses softly against mine, pressing it with such despairing affection. "You think we are over, but we're not." His cheek continues to caress mine. "Whatever you are believing now, just please believe that I love you. Whether I am here or in Coulsdon, I love you."

Cascading tears start rolling themselves from out of my stinging eyes.

I can't hear this.

I can't be here.

I just can't.

Escaping from Danny's desperation and his promises, I leave the house barely able to breathe as I make my way to my car. I just need to drive. Drive and drive, until it is safe for me to come back.

To come back to an emptiness.

To loneliness.

To nothing.