Love At First Sight Part Two

Chapter 230 - Do You Even Listen?

I can't believe that 2021 is already three weeks old. The time has been passing by really fast. I was really busy with working and studying. I'll have some architecture exams in march and since it's a lot I gotta know then I had to start now already. Therefore Erling and I don't have much time together and we gotta use every second together. For normal that's exactly what we're doing but not today. I've made dinner whilst listening to one of my professors and Erl was training. Now we're sitting at the table and eat. "How was your day?", I ask my boyfriend but he doesn't Answer, he's looking at his phone. "Erl? Hello? You here?", I ask whilst waving. He looks up, looking very confused, and then says: "Sorry, what did you say? I just had to reply to some message." I smile and and answer: "No problem. I asked how your days was." "It was good, I scored a lot in training.", he answers shortly and then looks at his phone again. That hurts me a little. His answer was really short and he didn't ask how my day was. And so far he hasn't said anything about the food I made. For normal he always thanks me for cooking and tells me that it's delicious but today he doesn't even look like he is thinking anything about the food.
I continue eating in silence, hoping that Erl will finally put his phone aside and talk to me. As he doesn't do that I just start talking. "I did quite much today. I helped the designers with programming the new BVB app and I studied a lot. Statics is so very interesting, I really love it. I'm so happy I quit psychology and went for architecture. I have so much more fun being creative and working with maths and physics. I really want to do this for the rest of my life. And maybe I'll design and plan and build our house in the future. That would be really nice, wouldn't it?", I say happily and smile at my boyfriend. But he just stares at his screen. "Do you even listen, Erl?", I add a little louder but he still doesn't show any reaction. I now put my hand between his head and phone and exclaim: "Hi, hello, I'm talking to you! Are you there?" Suddenly he harshly grabs my arm which really hurts and throws it aside. "Get you fucking hand away, it's annoying as fuck!", he loudly says at the same time. I quietly whimper because of the pain which rolls over me like a wave. "What is wrong with you, Erl? What on your phone is so important that you don't care about me anymore? It's okay of you have something important there but tell me that instead of just ignoring me. We already have almost no time together at the moment and I really don't want to spend the few minutes we have together being ignored.", I say angrily. He flashes his eyes at me and growls: "It's none of your business. And now shut up, I have to concentrate. And you seem to be fine anyway, so you will be able to spend one evening alone." The way he says those words really hurts me. He sounds so angry and hateful and nothing like the man I love. And that's really bad because there's something I wanted to talk about really bad. Although I've been so busy in the past few days I've been thinking a lot. And I realised how broken I am. I always seem to be fine with my perfect relationship, great job, the studies I love so much and my friends. But the truth is... I am feeling really bad on the inside. The loss of Madita still breaks me every single day and even though I always say I'm not blaming myself anymore that's exactly what I do. And not only that is hard. I've been having a lot of doubts about everything since we lost our princess. I am afraid to do a lot of things because of the possible consequences. I can't trust myself anymore at the moment and that makes a lot of things hard. And I am scared of things I've never been scared of before. Especially talking to people. And with the lockdown it got even worse. I have problems talking to the cashier of the supermarket, ordering food almost makes me cry and when I don't get something my professor says I almost collapse because asking a is scaring me so much. I realised that over the past few weeks and I realised that I really need professional help. That I need a therapist again, this time constantly. All these things are so hard to deal with for me and I really wanted to talk to Erling about it. To finally open up. To show him that I'm everything but alright. But he isn't even listening to the things I say and also he isn't seeing that I'm feeling horrible. He just really doesn't seem to care about me right now and that breaks my heart into little pieces.
I stand up and take my plate to the kitchen, then I lock myself up in the bathroom and dial Kathi's number. As the oldest of my friends she's always my go to person, she just always knows what to do and I told her everything in the past few weeks. As she picks up the phone I don't even say hello. I just sob and say: "I didn't tell him. He didn't even listen and he doesn't seem to care. I.... He... He just acted so cold and didn't show any love. And that hurt so much. What should I do?" As she asks what exactly happened I tell her the story. She understands and says: "That sounds awful. But maybe it's really something important right now. I think you should try to talk to him again tomorrow. And see if he's in a better mood then." I whisper: "Okay." and after a moment of silence I say: "When I asked him what the thing in his phone was he said it was none of my business... Kathi... I.... I am so afraid that he... Might be cheating."