Even Heroes Have Scars

[78] Irresistible

Ansley's P.O.V.

Something was wrong with my girlfriend, and I wasn't sure what. For the past couple of weeks, I hadn't been able to figure her out. Sometimes she was so outgoing and venturous with me, so comfortable in her skin, and other times she would completely close off. She had even walked out of my apartment last night without giving much reason. She texted me almost an hour later, telling me she got home, which had me worrying why it took her so long to drive a fifteen minute distance. The whole night, I kept my phone's ringer on as loud as possible, expecting her to call me in tears in the middle of the night, but she never did.

Now, as I was preparing to go in to work (later than usual because I would be closing tonight), I was surprised by a knock on the door. There was only one person I thought it could be: Demi, the one who always came in person when they felt they needed to explain something.

"Good, you're here," she said as I opened the door.

"Well, hello to you, too," I greeted as she walked into my apartment, honestly, looking a mess.

Her hair was in a messy bun, and she wore sweatpants and an oversized band shirt. No makeup coated her face, which was of course beautiful and adorable and rare to see, but she had bags under her eyes, and her facial expression seemed so... lost.

"I was thinking of going to see you at the diner, but then I seemed to remember you saying you were working late today, and I also didn't want to look like this in public." She seemed ashamed of her appearance, but I still thought she looked gorgeous.

I started back towards my room to finish getting ready for work; she followed me. "Are you okay?" I asked as I stripped off my t-shirt and pulled on my pink golf shirt.

She shook her head no. "I-I don't know, I –" She couldn't find her words. "I feel terrible for rushing out like that last night."

I gave no response.

"This is the part where you're supposed to say, Oh, it's okay, babe, I understand," she said hopefully, like she genuinely believed that I could grasp what happened last night.

I gave Demi a confused look and rose an eyebrow. "But... it's not okay, and I don't understand." I continued on once I saw that this hurt her a little. "You just... walked out, barely even said I love you before you were out the door. That's not okay, Demi."

"I'm sorry, but if you had known why..."

"I don't know why," I told her as I pulled off my shorts and tugged on my khaki pants. "Because you didn't tell me. You didn't tell me anything. Look, I don't want to be accusing you of things, because obviously you were going through something, but you didn't tell me anything. You just... left."

She bowed her head in shame. "If I'm being honest, I don't really understand why or how I was feeling. I guess I was... anxious? Or upset? Maybe some of both – I don't know."

I sighed, starting to feel like a bitch. "If you had told me you weren't feeling good or that you were having anxiety, I could've tried to help you or given you space, whatever you needed. I understand what that's like. You just have to tell me. But when you run out like that, without a word, it makes me feel like I did something wrong, like something I said hurt you and made you leave."

Demi, who had risen her head while I spoke, lowered it again and mumbled, "I guess you did a little bit."

This made me sit down on the bed and pull her closer to me, taking her hands in mine as I looked up at her. "What? What are you talking about? What did I do?"

She shrugged, growing teary-eyed. "I don't know. It was a mix of things. I was already feeling anxious about tour and stuff, and then I tried to distract myself by imagining our future together, and you kind of shut everything down."