“I got to her as fast as I could,” he says his voice lower than before.

“You can’t protect her, and you don’t love her.”

I open my eyes to see them standing nose-to-nose, anger rolling off of both of them. I cough and it pains me to do so, but both sets of eyes fly to me. Zeke walks straight to my side, grabs my hand and holds it in his.

“Can you stand?” my father asks from behind him. I think about it and try. When I manage to get my hands in the right position to lift myself, it hurts, worse than before. Zeke’s face looks more pained, and his hands come behind to support me. He helps me stand and I do just barely, thanks mainly to the strong painkillers I know are pumping around my system.

“Please stay,” he pleads with me, his voice unlike anything I’ve heard.

“I love you. Falling in love with you was easy, yet hard for me. Hard, because I fought it, easy because I knew it. But staying in love, being in love, it’s harder. You don’t make it easy,” I say to him, his hands become softer, like he’s trying to break loose but can’t.

“Don’t,” he manages to say, but it’s weak. So unlike him.

“I have to, Zeke. It’s broken. We’re broken…beyond repair.” His eyes shut, he doesn’t look at me as he stands.

“You don’t have to go.”

“Yes I do,” I say and my father holds his hand out for me to take, I take hold and don’t look back. This is it! This is the time I need to separate what the heart wants and what the head knows. I can’t do this with him anymore. I wanted love, but not under these circumstances.

He’s quiet on the drive, my father isn’t much of a talker, never has been. But I was expecting to be grilled, or at least questioned.

“You’re just like your mother,” my father says. Which is unusual, he doesn’t speak of her at all. She died when I was young, I don’t have many memories of her.

“Why?” I ask not looking at him, staring at the road ahead.

“She left a trail of broken hearts wherever she went,” he says.

“How does that make me like her?”

“You do the same. That man, despite all his flaws, loves you.”

Wow! That’s not something I thought I would hear him say.

“He only thinks he does,” I mutter, lying back on the seat and closing my eyes.

“No, he does. Just like Tragger.”

“I don’t want to talk about Tragger, Papa.” It always comes back to him, he’s the man my dad wants me to marry more than anything.

“He will be good to you, keep you safe. Keep your heart safe.”

“Yes, he may, but I don’t love him.” He won’t listen to me, he never does.

“You could learn to.”

“Did you learn to love, Mom?”

He huffs at my statement. “I loved your mother from the first time I met her, she had me spellbound.”

“And you want less for me?” How can he expect me to learn to love someone?

“No, but I prefer you safe. And that man is not safe.”

“I know that, why do you think I’m here with you.” I want to scream at him, but nothing ever works with him and screaming won’t get me anywhere.

“We’re going home, I booked us on the next flight,” he tells me. I wonder why he’s here. Then I remember he had to come for work, and he didn’t even bother calling me to let me know he’d arrived.

The flight is quiet, nothing is spoken. And my mind doesn’t stop thinking of that man, that man that I know is not good for me.

****

My home is quiet. It’s been two days since the day I left Zeke. Tragger has visited me once, I asked him not to bother coming back. I don’t want to give him false hope when there’s nothing to give him. My father dropped me off, did some grocery shopping, and then I asked him to leave. I’ve done nothing but lay on my couch, watching reruns of old television programs.

My phone beeps from the couch, and I know it’s him. It’s been beeping the last couple of days, ringing as well. I’m wondering when the battery is going to die; surely it has to be soon?

I don’t want to look at it, don’t want to know what he has to say. I’m trying to separate us, but he just doesn’t seem to want that. He doesn’t understand that it will never work. He’s destroyed us, wrecked us from the start.

“Hey,” I hear from the couch. I stand and unlock the door to see Benji standing there. I haven’t seen him since the night I left Tragger. A small smile takes over my face and he leans in to cuddle me softly, then he steps back.

“Your father told me you were back,” he says following me inside. I go back to the couch where I was before and bring my legs up under me.

“I’m sure that’s not all he’s said,” I say rolling my eyes knowing he’s probably said a lot more.

“So you found it?” he asks and it takes me a moment to remember our earlier conversations. He told me to go and find love, to fall in love, and to fall out.

“Yep,” I say not looking at him.

“Did it destroy you?” he asks sounding serious.

“Might as well have,” I tell him.

“So he didn’t love you back?” It takes me a moment to answer that, I don’t know what to say.

“He says he does, but I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Why did it take him so long to tell me? Why did he treat me so bad? Why did he use me for sex? I don’t know, he said it himself he doesn’t love. So why would that change now?”

“Because of you.”

Though lovers be lost love shall not.

~Dylan Thomas~

It has been two weeks, and I feel way better than I did. I’m still hoarded up in my apartment because I don’t have to be anywhere. My phone has died and I don’t want to deal with any of that. A package arrived yesterday from him; I haven’t opened it yet, afraid of its contents. It’s big and sitting in my doorway. I know I should open it. I think my heart is broken, I think he was the love of my life. You know, the one you never forget the one that’s always there, that others will never compare to. Even though it would be so easy considering he never wooed me.

After the last episode of the Gilmore Girls, I have nothing left to watch. I’ve managed to watch all of the Charmed, Dawson’s Creek (don’t laugh) and True Blood episodes. But the box still sits there and stares at me, goading me to open it. I grab a kitchen knife and walk to it slowly like something may jump out at me if I open it. I slowly run the knife along the tape and pull open the box. When I look into it, its contents confuse me. I pull the first thing out and it doesn’t make any sense. It’s his shirt, one that I’ve slept in many times, and when I smell it, it still smells of him. I rummage through the rest and see it’s all his clothes, ones that I’ve worn, and ones that he has worn that I’ve loved on him. It still doesn’t make any sense.

I tip the box upside down to empty the contents and in the bottom there’s a letter, in his handwriting.

Meet me tonight, 7 pm at your apartment door.

I didn’t open the box when it came so the note confuses me, is he here? Surely he hasn’t been waiting for me? I walk to the front door and am reluctant to open it, not knowing what I’ll find. When I do, he’s there. Sitting on the floor, typing on his phone. He hears the door and looks up; a wave of relief seems to wash over his face. He stands and his black jeans hug him tightly, his black shirt and baseball cap make him look bad, so bad and yet so good.

“Pixie?” he says, looking me up and down and taking a step toward me. I stop him by putting my hand up and walk backward slamming the door in his face. My breathing becomes heavy, and I slide down the door wondering what he’s doing. Why is he here? I even out my breathing and feel the door move, it must be him leaning against it. I stop breathing and try to listen.