Fix It

Let Me Go

It had been six weeks. Six weeks since their last phone call. Six weeks since they last lay together. Six week since they’d communicated in any fashion. Kate just felt numb. She’d kept herself busy by working her job and seeing her friends. She did anything and everything to keep herself from thinking of him. Thinking of Porter. She purposely avoided going to the park where they’d shared their first date, staring into the stars as they laid out on her woven blankets. She tried to stay away from the string of coffee shops downtown where they would spend hours reading cheap paperback novels and just enjoying each others’ presence. She took a different route to avoid the stretch of road where he’d pulled over and changed her world forever.

It was a Tuesday when it happened. It’d been raining all night so the roads were slick, requiring extra concentration to navigate through. They were coming home from a Halloween party. The tension in the car was palpable. She was upset about a girl she’d seen him talking to, and he was upset about the way she’d embarrassed him in front of his friends with their hasty exit. But this wasn’t any usual fight. They both felt… tired. Tired of fighting this same fight over and over and over with seemingly no end. Her insecurities haunted him, her lack of self esteem drowned him. In the first stages of their relationship, he had almost welcomed these things about her. He saw her as sort of a fixer-upper project. Fixing her was the perfect distraction from his father's battle with cancer. He thought he could mend in her the self confidence that she’d never had to begin with. He thought if he could make her feel better, it would mean he wasn't a total failure. Instaead of doting on his dad's sickness, he instead tried to focus on her. Something he had control over. He went out of his way to make her feel reassured at every chance, made sure she knew he cared for her and only her. But over time, he started to resent her. Started to be angry that he couldn’t talk to anyone of the opposite sex without her worrying. He was baffled as to why, after all this time, she still wasn’t sure how he felt for her. He could drown her with “I love you”s, pepper her with compliments, and it wouldn’t make a difference.

They didn’t fight on that Tuesday night. There was just silence. Terrifying, empty, final silence. The only sounds in the car were the reverberations from the heavy rainfall. She was silently screaming out for him not to give up on her. For him not to walk away. She wasn’t a lost cause, not yet. But as she stared at him, she knew. His eyes were totally devoid of emotion as he glanced over at her. Although they were side by side in the car, she felt as if he was miles away. Silent tears broke free as she realized that the damage was done. He’d finally grown exhausted of trying to constantly reassure her that yes he loved her and yes she was important. As they rounded the curve heading into the parkway, her heart was literally hurting. Not in that stupid cliche meaning. Her heart felt as if it was being ripped from her chest. Leaning her head back against the headrest, she squeezed her eyes shut as more tears poured onto her cheeks. All of a sudden, he pulled over to the side of the road. Her eyes flew open as she witnessed him turn the car off, unbuckle, and climb out into the storm. She followed suit. She didn’t care that her dress would get soaked, and that her shoes would get soggy. She would follow him anywhere.

Coming to stand beside him in front of the car, she fully took in the sight of him. Strong arms crossed over his chest, his orange shirt dripping wet. His normally bright green eyes were now dull and lifeless as they bored into her face, searching for something he knew he’d never find. She absentmindedly reached up to pull a tendril of curly hair away from his forehead. He flinched. He looked down. And that was all it took. That simple action of him pulling away from her was all it took for her to know they would never be the same again. She could stay there and try to talk to him. Try to convince him she’d made a mistake. That she would try and change. But she was worth more than that. She might be totally convoluted in her self worth, but she knew she was worth more than that. She wrenched her purse from the passenger side door and wrapped her coat around herself, attempting to warm her now freezing body. She took one last look at him, and with that she turned away from him. She turned away from the one person who’d she’d opened up to. The one man she had given everything to. The one she’d go anywhere for. The one man who made her feel like maybe she was worth something after all. She turned from him, and she ran.

He screamed her name, and it was the most guttural, heart wrenching scream she’d ever heard. She didn’t stop. He trailed her for about a mile, and as he continued to scream she could hear the tears in his voice. She knew he could easily run faster than her and overpower her if he wanted to, which was infuriating. He was fighting for her, but only just barely. So she kept running, not looking back, not wanting to. Her feet hit the pavement again and again for over an hour, yet she didn’t tire. When she reached her house she almost expected to see his dark blue Jeep trailing behind her. But it wasn’t there.