You Can't UnRing the Bell

7. Let's Fail All the Way

He had spent the past two hours struggling with himself. His bed was a mess, he had kicked his covers, put them back on, thrown his pillows. He had tried to understand what rage had pushed them both to unleash hell onto the other. He remembered what kind of ordeal they had undergone six years before; how their mutual desire for the other and its subsequent frustration had pushed them to look for a frontal shock at the slightest occasion. But this time he knew it was different. It was not just sex. It was what it meant. What it implicated. This time he had been the one refusing it because his vital need for her skin, her scent, was balanced by his primal fear that it would swallow him in the chaos of unfulfillable expectations.

The thought of the torn pieces of paper thrown in his garbage can came to haunt him again; another unfulfilled expectation. He realized he had been the architect of his own hell. He realized he should have taken what she offered instead of protecting what he would never have. She had offered herself body and soul and he had taken nothing of it. He had refused it.

He got up with a sigh. A throbbing headache reminding him that his lack for sleep would be accompanied by a solid hangover, last visible trace of a lost battle. He was his own casualty, the only soldier down and unlikely to recover.

When he reached his kitchen, he eyed the garbage can once, then endeavored to make himself some coffee. He eyed it twice, before searching for some aspirin. And again. Each time wondering how long this circus would last, already certain he would give in. But as any good soldier, he was ready to resist some more despite the suffering. Despite the inevitability of his fate. So he went showering. His third shower in a little more than 5 hours. Then he got dressed, shrugging as he saw the tie Catherine had offered to him a mere week before. If she knew what happened last night...

He realized he did not care. He had not been cheating on her, he had been cheating on Bones with her. That was the reality of this already failed pretence of a relationship. What would he do about it? He had no idea. He wondered if unfulfillable expectations were better than the phantom of a relationship. A ghost replacing another ghost.

When he returned to the kitchen, ready for work, he pressed his lips together, trying to resist some more and rolled his eyes at himself before opening the garbage can and reaching for the pieces of paper. He took a breath, placing both pieces on his coffee table, discerning the neat writing of his partner. He swallowed. It felt like touching the most intimate part of her... The most valuable too. Her heart. Fragile, broken. Crushed, as she would say.

Booth,

I am sorry to write this to you. I am sorry to think that you won't find me in time. I know you are trying, I am trying too. But I guess sometimes trying is not enough. I am afraid. I traded with death my whole life (if I daresay) and now that the time has come for me I just don't want to. I cannot even ask you if it has an underlying meaning.I suppose it is normal for me to want to live, right? I just... There are so many things that I want to do. Silly things, when I come to think of it. You would laugh at me if you heard them. I want to sleep in late. I never did it. Or eat in my bed. I want to drive a supersonic plane. Just for the rush of noradrenalin. I want to read Little Women because it was my mother's favorite novel. I want to learn how to play guitar like Russ does. I want you. I want you to want me too. I always thought I would have time. I pushed things away because I thought there would be time. There is no more time. What do I do?You remember when you said, you and I, this was going somewhere? What did you mean? What does it mean today? I suppose it does not mean anything anymore. I hope it did. Not that it would change anything. But you should just know. I am sorry to have thought it meant nothing then.

I am sorry.

Your partner, Bones

When he finished reading, he shut his eyes tightly. He leaned back in his couch. So that was fate? That was the ironic path through life made of cross-roads and dead ends. Of mistakes and regrets. Of questions unanswered, questions never asked. He had never asked her. No more than she had asked him. They had assumed all along, that this was for the best. He had assumed all along that this was the only solution. He had accepted that she would belong to him in an incomplete, fragmented way and she had accepted to give that much of herself. He had protected her from herself while she had protected him from herself, too? What sense did that make?