The Ache Between Us

Chapter Twenty- Four - Rafael

I've never in my life fucked up this bad before. I could blame it on a million other reasons, but it was ultimately my fault in the end. I still couldn't wrap my head around what had happened. How did I go from having her in my arms to her leaving me without looking back once? How did we go from claiming each other to this? Was that all we had–pure animosity for each other hidden behind touches and kisses?

It was hard to remember why I hated her when she was with me. She made me want to forget everything. She was the only person in my life that made me truly, genuinely happy. Yeah, we fought, but even fighting with Iris was a thrill. I'd rather fight with her every day than never have her in my life again.

Her words were on a torturous, endless loop like some broken record, playing over and over again in my head, skyrocketing my guilt and stupidity through the goddamn roof. I chose not to trust her, to trust the Iris I knew when she never once gave me a reason not to. A lie. The hate I had harvested for her over the years was all a lie.

A fucking lie. Yet I believed it. I chose to believe it.

Why? Why would I, for a second, sell out Iris and everything I knew about her for her father? A father that I already knew was shitty. A father that she had warned me about called me crying about. What possessed me that night to let him speak to me like that?

I should have knocked him to the fucking ground. I knew how he was with her. She'd vented to me about him hundreds of times, and I wouldn't even know what to say to her. I'd just hold her in my arms and promise her that I'd never hurt her.

Idiot. I was a fucking idiot.

I lost ten years of my life. I lost ten years of living a life without Iris by my side, without her sweet kisses, her smiles, her, because of what? Pride? Ego?

You ruined me that night. You broke my heart. You fucking broke my heart that night.

The night that changed everything. Knowing I broke her heart, knowing it was me she cried over, made me fucking hate myself. No wonder she came back into my life with a vengeance; her hatred was warranted.

Fuck.

I couldn't get the heartwrenching image of her brokenhearted face out of my goddamn mind. It was haunting me day and night. My heart was in pure agony. My brain was scattered all over the floor as it thought about her. Everything reminded me of her. Everything joyful, beautiful, and serene reminded me of the girl I lost.

Again.

I remembered every tear that fell down her face, and I remembered how her eyes closed as she remembered that night with me. The worst part was that I remembered how her voice cracked when she spoke to me as if her heart was cracking along with her.

I could practically hear it, and all I wanted to do was gather her in my arms and mend it, mend her, mend us, but I knew I couldn't. I deserved it. I deserved everything that she said, and I didn't deserve to have Iris in my life. I didn't deserve her love, her joy, her laughs, her smiles, her. I couldn't even blame her for anything.

It was my fault, and even though her father put this wall between us, I was the idiot for helping him cement it to the floor. I allowed him to instill doubt, anger, and hatred for Iris in my heart and mind. But, if I had trusted her that night, then none of this would have ever happened.

I read every interview you did, and fucking hell Rafael, I was so proud of you. So proud of the man you had become, but looking at you now. I don't know what to think of you. I don't think there are words to describe how much it hurts to even look at you right now.

Iris was the ride-or-die type of woman. She would have stayed by my side through and fucking through. I never gave her the fucking chance to. I'd wear my mistakes and her pain on my sleeve until the day I'm put into the ground and out of my misery. Even then, I'd still be in agonizing misery, knowing damn well Iris left me with such hatred for me in her heart.