Finding Home

Chapter One: when the walls start to crack (Atlas' 23rd birthday)

"Let's break up."

    She looks taken aback by her voice, as if she hadn't meant to speak in the first place. She then gets this faraway look in her eyes, like she's not all there in the current moment. The person she's talking to doesn't look like he has quite yet processed what she said, as he was focused on the fire that he was trying to get going. After a few moments of silence, he looks at her, blinking in confusion, mouth gaping for words. He looks, in all honesty, like he's struggling to breathe; and for a moment he does struggle to breathe. He doesn't breathe at all for a few seconds and when he finally does breathe it's a pained gasp for air. It could be comedic almost, the way the crickets carry the silence as the wind rips harshly through their little camp space.

   It's awkward now, she thinks, she knows he is processing what she said because his hands slow down till he completely stops fiddling with the wood and is now looking at her. Their eyes meet from across the way, and then the fire finally catches so she shifts her gaze because looking at him hurt. They say nothing for a moment and then slowly he mumbles,

" Iris... You... Your... Uhh, you're joking right?"

   He's met with silence, as he pokes at the fire, and after a lengthy pause he finally looks up at her and says,

"Iris, please junebug, tell me you're joking. Th- that you don't mean it. Please tell me that today is just one of your bad days."

   Again, he's left with a blank stare and no response, he lets out a huff of air and shakes his head.

" Of course, I'm met with silence as you daze off after ripping the oxygen out of my lungs."

   He mumbles under his breath, then after a second while scoffing he raises his hands to his mouth and a little louder he calls out;

"Are you even listening to a word I'm saying?"

   She needed to take a second to think. She's having a hard time coming to terms with what she has said. She'd been thinking about it for months. Going back and forth in her mind because, could she really leave him? She contemplates whether she can take it back or not. Does she want to take it back? Can they go back? Can she go back? She doesn't know, she wants him to hold her again finally.  He had been pulling away. After she found out about his night out, she was hurt, and he knew that. However, she hadn't left him because she didn't want to, she thought that she could get past it. They had nine long and intense years together. Honestly thinking about it all is giving her a headache. She hates when he does this, these days it's always this narrative. Recently he's been blaming her mental state when they get into any kind of argument.

"I hate when you do that Atlas, and you know it. Why does it have to be about my mental state?"

"What else is it supposed to be about Iris? What else am I supposed to think? You have been distant for months. I have watched you pull away from me slowly. Do you know how that feels? To watch the person who literally gives you life, who is your reason for breathing start to hate you? It wasn't fast and it wasn't easy. I watched you stop smiling when I came home during the first month, then your mood would shift when I was around. I watched your shoulders drop and you let out the breath you were holding when I left the room. Was I so bad? Did I really suffocate you?"

"Atlas..."

   His name on her lips is wet, and she's openly crying, unable to accept that he knew. All those months she thought she kept her feelings under the surface. She's crying because she watched her father fall out of love with her mother. She crying because she watched her mother and brake and wither away after. She swore to never become them, only to turn around and become them. She was selfish and she had hurt the man who was the love of her life. He had brought her back to life literally and figuratively. He saved her and she wouldn't be here without him.