Left in confusion.

1. The breakup

"Stop walking away from me please." Tears fall over my cheeks as I breathe heavily following his footsteps around my living room. I can feel my heart pounding and my vision getting blurry, maybe that's also because of the amount of alcohol I've consumed this evening. He may not say much but his eyes are screaming at me. His pupils fully dilated filling nearly his whole eyes. "You make me feel so bad about myself!" He yells at me. I stare at him and touch his arms with my hands. He feels warm, he must be so worked up. "What is bothering you? Talk to me." I beg him almost. My emotions have absorbed me completely at this point. My hands are shaking, I cry uncontrollably, my gestures are restless and I can't think brightly anymore, It's all a blur. I need him to tell me I did nothing wrong, I need him to be okay, I can't lose him. "You told me that what happened tonight was my fault." I can feel his breath going past my face, that indicates how loud he is.  I freeze. Did I tell him that? When did I do that? "I can't remember much of tonight, I had a panic attack." I apologize to him. "Please let's just go to bed, we can talk about it tomorrow." I feel some sense coming back into my words. I feel less blinded by emotion. I don't think that counts for him. I reach my hand out again to his arm. "If you try to touch me again I'll hit you." It all goes black in my head. I can't move, I feel almost paralyzed. 

"How do I make it up to him, I can't lose him." I tell my parents who came downstairs wondering what the noise was. My father told him to leave, and he then begged my dad to let him talk to me. He did not allow it. "You will not ruin my daughter." He said to him. My mother started crying with me. She held my hand and rubbed it with her thumb. "But honey, he wanted to hurt you, why would you want to be with someone who wants to hurt you?" The sentence went through my mind multiple times. I could not answer my mom. At first, I kept saying the same words over and over about how I needed him. Now I'm completely silent. She looks at me and I see her pain. "I'm so sorry." Suddenly I feel very nauseous, and a feeling of disgust comes over me. Not because of what he did but because of what I did. I let my parents down, how could I have let it get this far? They didn't raise me like this. "You have nothing to be sorry about, get some sleep." My parents hug me. I do as they tell me and lay in bed. I throw my phone to the side of the bed. I know he'll text me, but I won't respond. I really want to respond and it physically hurts me not to do so but I know it's better. 

I look through the notifications on my phone the next morning. Nothing from him. Completely nothing. Do I now text him? Are we over? I lay my phone to the side. The words he said yesterday wander in my mind. Connecting the dots, finding the reason why. I scan the situation from beginning to end. His words are like riddles I have to decipher. He always operates like this. Makes me feel unsure of my own thoughts. My phone lights up, my eyes fall on the screen. Thomas: "Call me." I do so. 

"What was wrong with you yesterday?" He calmly asks me, like it's an everyday question. "You wouldn't talk to me Thomas, I wanted to reassure you. What was I supposed to do?" I try my hardest to make my voice sound as calm as his sounds. "Why can't you leave me on my own when I ask you to?" Maybe because you made me so dependent on you I start to feel my heart ache as soon as I feel distance between us? "I wanted to make sure you were okay." He just sighs. "Thomas, you can't always do this to me." My voice begins to appear more stressed. "So now it's all my fault? You're unbelievable." I can feel my face warming up and turning red, my hands start to shake and quickly find themselves in my hair while scratching my head. Is love supposed to feel this way? "I never said it was your fault, yesterday was just awful and I want to make this right." I lied, I might not want that anymore. I'm just afraid of his reaction to it "Then tell me what you're sorry for." "What?" "You heard me." My hands are now fists, I press my nails in my palms. I've been doing it since I've been a little girl. 

"I had the worst panic attack in my life, I then had to pee in a fucking alley because you didn't want me to enter a pub again. On our way home you started to ignore me, saying I've upset you but not telling me what upset you. You know how much I hate that and what that does to me. At home, you then started acting like a little child and walking away from me until you grabbed my arms and threatened to hit me. All because I wanted to comfort you for something I had no fucking idea about what it even was. After I had a panic attack myself and you did nothing, you left me sitting on the ground refusing to call my parents because you just wanted to get home as soon as possible. I couldn't breathe, I thought I was dying. You didn't even hug me. If someone has to be sorry it is you. Not me. But you can't understand that because everything always has to go your way. I'm so done with this." My mind is blurry, I am blinded by anger. "Are you seriously breaking up with me because of this?" His voice sounds as if he's belittling the situation and by that me "So this is nothing to you? Do you think this is okay? You think this how you treat your girlfriend?" I don't feel any love towards him anymore at this point. "Are you breaking up with me Mae or not?" I shake my head, my anger turns into disgust. I'm now laughing at how stupid he sounds. "You're so selfish, that's the only thing you can think of? Not how you've hurt me. Just if I'm breaking up with you. And for your information, I am." "Mae." "No." I hang up the phone. 

My phone has been going off for fifteen minutes now. Phone call after phone call. Text after text. He is begging me to call him back. Saying he's nothing without me, saying he needs me. After thirty minutes the 'I'm nothing without you' turns into 'You're nothing without me'. He's very much aware of the fact that he's one of the only people I have left. He likes to use it against me. It makes me feel bad about myself. That way he can then reassure me, showing me that I need him to feel okay about myself. after forty-five minutes he stops. Do I finally have some peace, some rest? After one and a half hours he starts again. There goes my peace. He tells me how awful he feels about what he has done, about how he wants to apologize. I would've fallen for this not even a week ago. Something changed. I see him differently now. At least I hope so. I almost feel sorry for him, but that would go too far. 

The whole relationship was about him and how he wanted things. If he had problems they were serious. If I had problems they were nonsense. When I wanted to help him to talk about his feelings he said I was pushing him. When I didn't ask him about his feelings he said I didn't care about him anymore. Whenever he joked about something I'm insecure about in front of his friends it was okay. I would never do that. If he sounds so terrible, why do I feel so bad about the breakup? The feelings of disgust towards him changed into sadness. Should I reply to him? What if something happens to him? I will text him just one thing. That won't hurt anyone. 

"Thomas, it's over. I wish you the best of luck in your life. We're not right for each other anymore." Not even two seconds before he reads it. "You're wrong, let us try again. I promise I will change." This is unbearable for me. He knows what he's doing and it's killing me that he continues to do so. "We've been here before. I don't want this anymore. Our relationship isn't making me happy anymore." "You will regret this, I'll wait a day. You'll come back, you always go back to me." He isn't wrong and that's what's bothering me. I keep returning to him because it feels 'safe' but in reality, I'm not safe with him. I decide to not respond to him anymore. Responding will only please him more and make him feel like he's in charge. I don't want to give him that. Even though the only thing I want to do right now is respond to him. I regret even texting him back in the first place. Why do I always make emotional choices and not rational ones? 

The situation from two hours ago repeats itself. My phone keeps going off. He's angry at me for not responding anymore, telling me how bad I'm treating him. Saying he's coming to my house to talk to me if I don't respond to him. I respond to him. "Leave me alone, you've done enough." I shouldn't have done that. I can still delete it. I'll just delete it. He already read it. Shit. "And you are doing nothing to save our relationship." As if that is my job. To save him, to save our relationship. I want to respond. I'm not going to. He calls me. 'Don't pick up' I keep repeating in my mind. 'Don't pick up, don't pick up, don't pick up.' Why is this so hard for me? "If you don't stop texting and calling me I'll block you." I text him. Do I want him to beg me to not block him or do I want him to be okay with it? I'm so confused with myself. I get almost twenty texts in the next 10 seconds, telling me not to do it. My finger floats over the button on my phone while ignoring the stream of texts that I'm receiving. I place my finger on the button and finally choose for myself. Something I haven't done in the last one and a half years.