Dorm 5108 | Mattheo Riddle

twelve.

AN: I'm going to stop giving out a specific upload date because I cannot stick to it 😭 I'm so sorry. I'm trying my best but my arse is being handed to me by life and a sprinkle of writers block. I do already have a lot of ideas for what is to come next and I must say, be prepared to welcome a certain Nott very soon... 15.8k update to apologise for my awful writing and upload speed <3 

Yellow streaks of light start to pour into my room and I blink once, twice, three times maybe before he speaks again. I watch his right hand brush over his lips, scour across the edge of his sharp jaw before massaging the left side of his neck. His tousled obsidian hair contrasts with his burnished eyes flickering against the rays of the cadmium sun. I read his lips, how he enunciates each syllable, but they don't register into one comprehensible thought inside my brain. Whatever's coming out of his mouth is muted, barely audible when it enters the drum of my ears. I'm observing this frustrated man in front of me but his actions and movements are dialled down to half the speed.

He repeats the phrase again but is presented with no response. There's nothing but the pitch of his voice waning to an empty whisper; losing its magic in the air we breathe. He reaches for my hand, hoping perhaps his once halcyon touch would break me out of my silent curse. But my hands are obeying my mind, and not my heart. They retreat to the safety of my body and his dejected expression tells me he's hurt by my unwelcoming demeanour. Yet, does he realise how he afflicted me in a similar manner the previous night? I shut my eyes for a few seconds, ridding my conscience of the harrowing memory before reopening them and everything seems to click. The dream-like haze dissipates as reality fast forwards to the present.

"Rhi–

He articulates the one part of my name with clarity but it leaves a rancid alkaline taste lingering within the hollow aches of my throat. I swallow. I swallow my suffering. I swallow the agonising dread emanating out of my chest along with the upsetting reason why he calls me Rhi. In return, I can scarcely say his. I can't conjure his name within the desolate halls and alleys of my head. I can't spell out the letters nor can I think about his name because it leads to her name. My mind will inevitably place them together in the same space.

"I'm sorry, Rhi." His countless sorries have lost their meaning and I'm unsure which part of last night he is spouting his apologies to. He can't change the past. He can't erase the emotions I felt and no matter how many ways he utters a sorry—he cannot amend his decision to choose her over me.

It sounds trivial, as if I am making a juvenile fuss over being the latter pick on a team but for the term of my life span, I have always been in last place in the eyes of the people deemed important to me. My mum. My dad. And now him. They have made it clear where their preferences lie.

I don't have the confidence or self-esteem to withstand one disappointment after another. There is a limit to my strengths and beliefs of him someday overcoming his affections for this other woman. Someday is not a definite future. It is a chance. It is a gamble I don't want to bet my life on because I know the outcome. I know what is waiting for me at the finish line and I know, I horrifically know from my record with my parents—there won't be a happy ever after ending.

When he went after her yesterday, I tried to hold onto him and pleaded with him to stay. I displayed my anguish on the very place he said he could find my true feelings. I voiced my beseeching thoughts but neither option found their way to him. He refused to see min in favour of her and within a brief second—he did what my parents have always bestowed upon me. He reinforced their vile actions and words. I am unworthy of anyone's attention; subservient to every living creature. I will always be cast aside because my wants and needs are not important.