Infinities

• CHAPTER T H R E E •

"I've been so fucked up in my own head, trying to face all my fears. I know I'm not the best, but I will change. I made many mistakes. I regret trying to be the perfect one for you."

– Are You Still With Him, Kina.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

{DENVER.}

It's been two weeks.
Two weeks since Evelyn left.

Each day Denver's mind had been consumed by thoughts of Evelyn. About what he'd done to her. The harm he'd caused her.

Denver and Evelyn hadn't had the easiest of starts to their relationship. When they'd met Evelyn had only been in her late-teens where Denver was just about to begin his early-twenties. At that time she didn't want him but he wanted her with every ounce of soul and body. Even wanting her he'd went along with other women, only because he was scared, scared of her rejection because she was just that impossibly beautiful. Scared of what they were becoming. Scared of letting go. Scared he wasn't her first choice.

He didn't know what to make of her. She was so out of his comfort zone. He thought he could learn to love her, but he didn't know where to start. He thought she could learn to love him, but her heart was always somewhere else. Sometimes he kissed her and she let him. Sometimes she pushed his hands aside. Sometimes he came away with the wetness of tears in her mouth and then she wouldn't let him touch her face.

There were times when she was so happy it felt like all the stars had started shining for him. She grabbed his hand and ran and ran and he could barely keep up. Once, she said she loved him in a sleepy voice then immediately took it back. He whispered that it was okay because he loved her too but by then she'd fallen asleep.

The truth is he never planned to fall for her; it all happened way too fast. Loving her was the easiest thing that he had ever did. Even when it was hard it was easy. Loving her was like breathing. So when she left he wasn't sad at first, just in a bit of a daze.

And he knew, he had to fix this.  And the way to fix it was to go where it began, to meet with Fiona.

*~*~*~*~*~*~

"She talked a lot when she was nervous," he said, "and it took her five months to kiss me back."

And it was as if he was back to that day all of a sudden.

"One day I was talking 'bout something, about politics or the news perhaps, and she kisses me, out of the blue; she presses her lips up against mine and she doesn't move. And I had to have her then," he said, "while her hands were quivering like a sparrow, and she looked at me like she couldn't quite catch her breath. I had to have her tawny grey eyes and ridiculously smudged eyeliner and shaky knees. I had to have her anxious ramblings and the way she covered her eyes when she was embarrassed. I had to have all of it."

And Fiona couldn't help but stare at him. The way he spoke of her with this absolute perfection.

"Funny," he said, "how one kiss could have brought all that out. I wanted everything in that moment; I could have had anything, and I loved her for it."

"But what about me, Beck?" Fiona asked. And she saw the turmoil begin in his eyes until his face morphed into one of a stranger.

He looked at her uncomfortably.

"I care about you, I do," he insists. "But I love her."

And Fiona felt sick as he explained:

"She has been with me all my life. She is my earliest memory. We have travelled the world together and she was there when I had no other friend."