Addiction (Jim x Tilly - The Basketball Diaries fic)

Chapter 16. The day our hearts broke 💔

Jim

Yet another month passed where Tilly and I strayed to the clean life. It had been two months since my overdose, and I was feeling better than ever. I knew Tilly was too. However, the strings were pulling at our relationship. Apparently a sober relationship is way harder than one when we are both addicts.

Tilly

Fucking Jim. What an asshole. I loved him, but my oh my was he angering me right now. I suspected we had spent too much time around each other, which we were both feeling. We argued about silly things really, but each argument was dooming bigger and bigger time after time. We both felt the tension, but kept quiet.

Jim

I slid my hand into her bra and gripped her breast.

"No Jim, not today" her tired voice came from the pillow. Not today? Every other day, but not today. Why? I wasn't a rapist for God's sake, I knew that no meant no, so I took my hand out from under her jumper and thudded down next to her on the opposite pillow.

"Why?" I quietly questioned. She let out a sigh. I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what. She had been acting so off lately, and if I was being honest, it hurt me. I hadn't done anything wrong to her.

Silence followed.

"You act like you don't even want a relationship anymore Matilda-"

"Tilly" she cut me off suddenly.

"Tilly" I corrected myself. Fuck, I hadn't done that in months. What was wrong with me?

"-and I don't even know why. It's not like I've done anything wrong. A few weeks ago you were all over me like 'Oh Jim, I love you so much' and now recently you're behaving like the sight of me burns your eyes. I don't understand. If I've done something to hurt you or wrong you, just tell me. I'm not a mind-reader. So what is it?" I finished, my voice threatening to break. I never showed emotions as strongly as this in front of other people, not even Tilly. Recently my mind had been moving to the thoughts that there was someone else, but I was too pussy to ask, so I just said nothing.

After a long stillness hung in the air, she spoke. The words echoed around my body, escaping everywhere but not quite entering my mind.

"That's because I don't" she replied my unanswered question, still leaving me slightly confused. She didn't what?

"I'm sorry, you don't what?" I began growing impatient and pulled myself into a sitting position in front of her, watching as she closed her eyes and drew a breath.

"Don't want a relationship".

A colossal pan smacked me heavily in the centre of my chest, hurling the remaining air out of me. I froze. I was completely baffled. I felt sick. Being sure I was going to heave, I made a swift beeline to the bathroom, but when nothing came, my body returned to the bedroom. I felt embarrassed. Those little fairies dancing on rainbows had vanished, leaving thunderous violent clouds as a replacement.

I glanced at Tilly to see her eyes still closed, but small tears seeping from them. No. She does not get to rip the heart out of my chest like a monster and then cry about it like I was the one who did it all. My breath quickened and I felt the air being pushed right out of me. It was like some invisible force was grabbing at my throat, stealing all the oxygen from me. I gritted my teeth together.

"I'm sorry" she started. Oh boy, I just could not wait to hear this one.

"We just aren't like we used to be. We argue all the time over stupid little things that don't even matter. I thought if I hung on longer, things might change and we could mend whatever broke in this relationship. But we can't. I've tried. You've tried. We've tried. I'm done attempting to make this all better and pretending like we're going to wake up one day and suddenly all our problems will be fixed." She opened her eyes and swung her legs over the side of the bed to get a better view of me. There needn't be any reason she'd need to look at me anyway, I'll be out of her sight in a minute if she's really had that much enough of me.