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~ Author's Note ~
Crap this story is so good and it's been a real hot second since I've published in it. Sorry ladies.
And gents?
𝑰 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝑰 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒑.
Reese's Perspective
I stumble back at these words, frozen, having so no idea what to do.
Antoine's Perspective
I don't know how, but suddenly, it clicks in my brain. I don't know if it's just me being relieved to finally have someone to blame for it all, but it makes so much sense. Everything that hit me, that didn't line up, that didn't make sense, that seemed so sudden, is all clear.
It's all clear now that it's this little devil's fault.
My problems.
Some of them.
I'm an awful person.
But my misfortune lately, I mean. Not my problems. My misfortune. It's all from her. It has to be. I don't know why it has to be, but it does. I'm hanging on to this last thread, actually hoping that it is her. Because then I'd have someone to blame but myself. Then I'd have something to be mad at, really, honestly.
Is it fair for me to be mad at her, though, when I'm sure she's mad at me, too?
I don't know.
Antoine doesn't say these words. I say them. I am not Antoine right now. I am no one. I am not in this pathetic body. I'm something else that I don't understand. I'm someone I don't know. I know Antoine. I thought I knew him. So this can't be Antoine. Right now, in this moment, I am not Antoine Griezmann. I mean, I can't be the same guy who was the star of the football team. I can't be the same guy who had so many friends.
I'm not him.
Anymore...
So Antoine doesn't say this. Griezmann doesn't. It's not Grizou who utters, sounding like nothing but the monster that I am, "It's all your fault, isn't it, Reese Mallory?"
I can see her swallow, and I try to pull myself up off the f***ing ground, but I'm can't. It's like I'm too heavy for myself now. There's too much weight on my back, although, physically, there's nothing.
"A- A- A- A- Antoine, I-"
She looks terrified, and that makes me so happy, and it makes me want to cry, and it makes me want to run, and it makes me want to hit her, and it makes me want to hit myself. I hold back all the contradicting things I want to do, because if I tried them all at once, I know I would shatter to pieces. So instead I yell at her, "Be f***ing honest with me! Everyone else is!" My father is! So is my mother, and Louis! And all my former 'friends'! And my football coach! And f***ing Brooke.
So why don't you be f***ing honest, too, Reese Mallory?
Tell me what I don't want to hear.
Because that's what f***ing everyone does to me.
So come on now and tell me I'm s***. Justify what you've done with the awful things I've done.
Because I'm awful.
Reese Mallory looks frozen, and finally I find within me the strength to pull myself up. Maybe it's the angry blood flowing through my veins. I don't know, but I don't want to be angry. Anger scares me, because I step out of turn when I'm angry.
And being scared scares me.
I can't be angry. I can't do anything else. Not again. Not now. Not when literally the whole world is against me. I don't need to do anything else to help that problem along.
I can't do anything else to help that problem.
I grab her low collar, and she looks scared, and embarrassed, and flustered, and very, very confused. I whisper to her, gasping, trying to contain all the punches and pain I want to give to her, "Just f***ing tell me what you did."
"Don't hurt me."
It is awful when someone tells you that. Because people only say that if there is a chance of you hurting them.
Of course there is a chance of that.
"Just tell me and I won't!" I scream, feeling the rain beat down on us. Of course it all started with her. It always ends with the ones who started it. Always. There are these little consistent rules in life, and I hate them, because they're a never-ending cycle, but they always seem to remain true.
Is that one of them?
She's breathing slowly. Not quickly, shortly, like I am. It's different. She's containing her anxiety, like I don't know how to do. I look right down into her eyes as she says, "I was behind everything with Brooke. I convinced her to get with you just in order to break up with you and ruin you. It was me."
It hits me like a fast train.
Even though I was expecting it.
I let go over her, stumbling back. She quickly fixes her tight dress that I had accidentally, apparently, pulled up by grabbing her collar. I couldn't care less about that right now. "You're brave," I mutter through clenched teeth. "To do such an awful thing like that as a girl of your size."
"Don't hurt me," she repeats, and I've heard her voice say that so many times to me, in so many places and contexts.
Everyone says to that me.
I say that to myself.
Don't hurt me.
Yet what do I keep doing?
Hurting people.
And they keep hurting me.
The cold rain catches up to me, and my head gets light, and finally, I shatter, and I turn away from her, running, not wanting her to see my tears, hear my sobs, and feel my trembling.
And I feel so stressed when I hear her kick off her high heels and run after me, using the softer grass instead of the rough sidewalk. She won't slip because she's going bare foot, despite how wet the world is.
Nothing is fair.
And nothing is right! Ever!
Including myself!
In these awful dress shoes and in my broken, confused, lost state, she's catching up to me after an awful pointless race, and the way she catches me is by running up behind me and wrapping her arms around my middle.
