But it isn’t, it isn’t.
“I’m resigning,” I tell her simply. “That’s all there is to it.”
I don’t even panic at the thought. It feels right, just as she feels right. It will be hard and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of hell for it. People won’t understand. It might make getting a new job harder but I will do it for her. At the very least, it will end the sneaking around. We can be together as we should. Free, for once in our lives.
“You’re not resigning,” she says, her voice becoming hard. Her eyes are dark and gleaming. “I won’t let you. And I won’t have that guilt on my head. I’ve had too much already. You’re keeping your job.”
“But then I’m losing you. How is that not going to fucking kill me?!” I yell. My face is burning, lungs so bloody tight.
“It’s the right thing,” she cries out. “And it’s the only thing. I’m sorry.”
I blink at her. Unbelievable. I honestly can’t believe this is happening.
“Natasha. Please. You’ll ruin me. Don’t do this,” I say softly, voice breaking in desperation. I grab her hand, squeezing it, trying to make her see. “Don’t end this. It isn’t fair.”
She watches me and I watch her and she’s being ripped apart just as I am. “I know it isn’t fair, Brigs. None of this is fair. But I’ve already caused you to lose everything good in your life. I’m not going to do it again.”
“But you’re everything good.” My jaw is clenches, my skin inflamed, trying to hold it together.
“Yeah, well,” she says, pulling out of my grasp. “Maybe I’m not.”
I would murder Melissa with my bare hands if I could. The thoughts she’s put in her head. She’s starting to actually believe it.
“Don’t go,” I tell her. I want to drop to my knees to get her to stay.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, turning from me, angrily wiping away her tears. “I don’t want to hurt you but I can’t do this. I can’t go through this again.”
“Then don’t go,” I repeat. “Please just fucking stay here and love me.”
She looks over her shoulder at me. “I do love you, Brigs. I do, I really do. I love you more than anything. That’s why I have to do this.”
I close my eyes, breathing in sharply through my nose.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper, my nails digging into my palm. Everything in my chest seems to tense and shatter. “Please, please don’t do this to me. I am glass and in your hands and I am breaking. Can’t you see that?”
I finally open my eyes, hoping to see something in her has changed. Whether she chooses to be stubborn or not, the fact remains that she is.
She’s shaking her head, staring at me with the saddest eyes.
She’s leaving me because she believes it’s the right thing to do.
“I’m sorry,” she says in a low voice and I wish I could turn to stone. “Please don’t hate me.”
I stare at her. I am dissolving before her eyes. “I could never hate you,” I manage to say. “I love you.”
“Then if you love me, let me go,” she says. “Let me leave. Let me make things right.”
I’m shaking my head. “You’re only making things wrong.”
“Good-bye Brigs,” she says with a sob, unlocking the door and flinging it open. “Please, don’t contact me. For your own sake. And mine.”
Then she’s running out the door, her hair whipping around her like a cape of gold silk and I have to lean against my desk to stay upright. The last words I said to her all those years ago ring through my ears and now, now I understand the exact pain she’d spent all this time trying to get over.
My heart is crushed. Absolutely. It feels like an anvil on my chest, pushing and pushing until I can barely breathe.
I want to collapse to the floor. Writhe in pain. I want to sink into the deepest sorrows, be dragged back into those inky depths. The hellish suffering. The turmoil that slices you up inside like poison-laced razorblades.
But this isn’t like last time.
Because I don’t feel guilt.
And I don’t feel shame.
I’m angry.
Really fucking angry.
It’s my anger at Melissa, at the situation, at my own carelessness that keeps me from focusing on my water-logged heart. It keeps me moving. I’m not going to roll over and play dead and admit defeat. I crawled straight out of hell – I’ve been through the worst already. I’ve come too far to bloody give up because things seem impossible, because someone wants to make my life miserable.