Addiction

Chapter 49.

"I wanna be drunk when I wake up, on the right side of the wrong bed.."

(Ed Sheeran - Drunk)

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The next few days were the same. Hayden and I ate breakfast quietly, left for work in our separate cars, I came home at 5:30 while he came home at 11:00. While I was in my makeshift study, he was in his. When I was on my way to bed I'd stop in his study to say goodnight, he'd kiss me but nothing more, no words exchanged. I'd wake up in the morning and he would already be sitting at the table waiting for breakfast. I don't know if he's been sleeping or not. He looks like he has, but then again he's always looked like he gets enough sleep.

I didn't want to keep living like this so I decided today would be the day Hayden and I talked. I'm afraid of how it will go. He has a defense mechanism of trying to hurt a person before he gets hurt. He's used it on me plenty of times before and I just know he will use it on me today. I'm afraid of what he'll say to me and what I'll say to him.

I don't want to fight or argue, I just want to talk. I want to make us better. I don't have the slightest clue as to how I will do that, but it's what I want.

I walk from my study to his bedroom with a blank mind, unsure of how I will start my conversation. I find him standing in his closet, drink in one hand phone in the other. He doesn't even look up at me when I enter the room.

"Hayden?"

"Alice." He utters his tone flat. If he's already frustrated this conversation isn't going to end well at all.

"What am I to you?" The words are out of my mouth before I get to think about what I wanted to say next.

"You are a person Alice."

"A person?" I am deeply offended by his lack of care and I dare to ask, "Well, what do I mean to you?"

He closes his eyes, sighing heavily and pinching the bridge of his nose, "I don't know, why are you even asking me this? I have actual shit to take care of, now is not the time for you to play twenty-one questions about our relationship."

"This isn't a game Hayden, I'm tired of this," I use my hands to point in between him and myself, "of us."

His eyes shoot open, anger infuriating in his ferocious cyan golden-speckled eyes. "What more do you want from me?!" His voice booms around the small space.

"You know what I want from you." My voice was quiet in comparison to his. I'm not trying to match his voice or to get angry with him, I just want to talk. "I'm tired of this one sided relationship Hayden."

"One sided? Are you fucking joking Alice? If you were to open your damn eyes and get out of your ridiculous fantasy of ever being loved by me then maybe you'd see that I am actually trying!" He was full on yelling, anger radiating off of him.

"You love me, I know you do. If you didn't you would have gotten rid of me a long time ago. Why don't you stop being so stubborn and submit to your true feelings Hayden."

"I am not being stubborn, why can't you get it through your thick skull that I. Can. Not. Love. You." He breaks each word down, speaking loud and articulately. Each word breaking my heart more than the last. "Move the fuck on, Alice."

"Move on? Fine." I turn around stuffing my phone in my jeans pocket and grabbing the first jacket I could find.

"Where the fuck are you going?"

I push past him exiting the closet, "I'm going to move the fuck on."

"Alice!" He calls after me. I ignore him running down the steps. "Don't you fucking dare leave!"