Ghost One Shots | FemReader

ONE LAST VALENTINE

The hard base of the chair felt like it was digging against your bones as you awaited his arrival. It was busy, as always, the restaurant you'd been going to every year for Valentines Day. As your gaze fell around the room, another tip of wine pouring into your mouth, you wondered if you even enjoyed it anymore or if it had all just become so habitual.

"Hi, love, sorry I'm late," he leaned down to press his lips to your cheek.

He looked flustered, tie askew, hair messy, not the vision of a man who had been running late. The blood in your veins recoiled to your gut, filling you with instinctive dread. Head turned, allowing his lips to linger for a moment whilst you disassociated from the entire situation.

"Sit down, Simon."

He did as he was told, bouncing with energy. His slender fingers moved his tie back to where it should have been, smoothed it down. Teeth bared in a shit-eating grin.

"You did something to your hair?"

Compliments fell flat. As you replied, you stared not at him, through him.

"Yes."

He wasn't wrong, you had changed it. You'd cut it, to help shed some weight. Remove the dead ends. The inside of your cheek was practically raw from chewing on it, watching him order his drink. Every single detail about him was so clear now, each pore on his face, the smile lines, the even deeper frown lines. Dark eyes which hid secrets from you. A scar on his lip. The roughness of his skin. The way his movements felt rehearsed, fine tuned to fit each scenario he found himself in. There was no person in there, it was just a void that sought anything filling. And in the process, it swallowed everything whole.

When the waitress walked away, you saw the slight drop of his lids, the swivel of his head. A scoff resonated round the delicate, thin glass, bounced off the thick red inside it. You looked at him as you took another sip, surrounded by heart decorations, the whole scene warped and distorted through the convex. You continued to spin it by the stem when you placed it back down, a droplet seeping into the white cotton fibres of the tablecloth. He was talking, but it turned into a high pitched buzz between your ears. The words soured in your mouth before you spoke, cutting him off.

"I saw the pictures on your phone, Simon."

He stilled, drawing a deep inhale, running his hands across the napkin in his lap several times.

In him, it didn't seem like nervousness, it seemed like someone trying to enact nervousness. A play, an action written in the script.

"Hone—"

"Bea? Nice ass, Simon."

Whilst you spoke he let out the breath with a chuckle, the self-assured low laugh of a man who was about to try his hand at yet another lie.

"No, I cannot he—"

"I was maybe always a little too skinny for you."

"No, I cannot help it if some crazed woman sends me—"

You couldn't wait any longer, bursting at the seams keeping in inside. At least you knew now, though your actions may have been morally grey, that you would have never been able to maintain such a charade of lies like he did. Bea was only one in a long line of women. It was worse when he was drinking, only for him to quit, be better for a few months, then back at it again, not coming home, saying he was working late. Erica, Leanne, a few others who you didn't even get the name of, that's how long they lasted.

"I slept with someone."

Your words were crisp. For the first time in the night you met his stare, observing it grow darker and darker. You continued, the salt rubbing in deeper.

"And you know him."

He leaned back in his chair, averting his eyes away from you, sucking on his teeth. For a second, he was vulnerable, emotions laid bare for all to see. Romantic music played on the grand piano in the background, general chatter of other, more content couples, filling the silence between you. Words twisted further into the wound.

"You're close."

He shifted with an indignant sniff, the chair groaned. Oh yeah, they were close.Very close. He'd come over a few times to your house, with his thick accent and beautifully open blue eyes. The door there had been held very firmly closed until one evening, when you'd had too much, you turned up at his place. Turns out so had he.

Next you knew, his fingers were digging into the full of your ass, moulding a handful, holding you close against him as his cock grew impatient. He slipped your underwear down from beneath your summer dress and turned you round. It slid straight in from your slickness.

The whole thing lasted only a few minutes. When you leaned down to pick your panties up he'd staggered back, bewildered, knowing he'd done wrong. You apologised over and over, he yelled at you to get out.

Simon stared across the table at you, anger bubbling right beneath the surface of his skin. Admission rolled off your tongue with ease, a kind of deep satisfaction accompanying it.

"It was Johnny."

He was silent, fully aware of how public a place this was. But he wished he could get his hand round that pretty little neck of yours and make you repeat what you just said to him. You finished off your glass, sliding a twenty on to the table. And right before you got up, you streched your fingers over the cotton of the table cloth, placing the key to the house you shared atop the note. Parting words which freed you from the cycle.

"This is the end, Simon. I'm done."