Beginnings and Endings [complete]

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Three

He got together with Stephanie. And he's not coming back.

He's not coming back.

Four words became a repeating echo in my mind. He's not coming back. Yeah, I guessed as much. But why the fuck does it hurt so much?

I curled up against my pillows and my blanket, shivering even though the sun was shining brightly. He's not coming back. He's not coming back. He's not coming back...

Oh, Dom... Unbidden, the tears began to fall, and I choked repeatedly, trying to hold them back and say something to Summer, who was apologizing profusely as though it was her fault. I barely murmured that to her before I hung up and just cried.

I haven't really cried since he left school. Xavier always made me happy, and because of restrictions on my phone Dom and I barely spoke. I only dropped him a text saying good night every night, and he would reply something short and concise. That was pretty much the etxent of our communication. Maybe that's why he's with Stephanie now. She's pretty, she's nice, she's smart, she's his age. There is no way to contend with her.

I knew that. I knew all of it in fact. I'd even been steeling myself against him, building up a concrete wall around myself so that whatever other shit he threw my way I'd be prepared. Why this information, not at all suprising, hurt so badly is a mystery to me.

He used you, a dark voice whispered into my head. You were just a filler. It was even more painful to admit it, but I needed to, so I did. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I had feelings for him anymore. The tears fell now because of how swiftly he tossed everything we'd been through together aside, all the promises and memories and bullshit that we pulled through. So easily did he throw me aside and pick someone else up. So spectacularly did he convince me to stay for him, simply by telling me that he misses me and that he loves me...

I sat up suddenly. It was a sight, Adrianne Reed with her dark eyes, now with heavy red eyebags and tear-stained cheeks, sit up suddenly like she'd risen from the grave itself. Frowning, I thought about it, about every night he told me to take care and how he felt about me. His exams ended on November 29th. I remember because had we been together it would mark our one year and six months anniversary. Summer said he hooked up with Stephanie shortly after...

Immediately, the pain and heartbreak, the disappointment and the sad feeling of being used and thrown away, was gone, replaced only by rage and fury and anger. My fists clenched into my bedsheet as I tried to control it. My anger had been bad when I was 11, and it carried on until I was 13, when I learnt to keep it down, but now it was threatening to rise again and I wasn't so sure I cared if I ended up yelling at him.

Minutes passed of my throwing away memories and hardships and challenges we went through together, as easily as he did me. The little orange book I stared at for a while, wondering what to do with it, before deciding that my room wasn't the right place to watch it go up in flames. I shoved it and all other notes and memoirs and gifts from him into the deepest darkest place of my closet.

'...dust in my cupboard, useless and wanted.'

Lennox's words came back to me, and I laughed bitterly at the irony. The next and only other line I could think of was Mel's: 'Dom will be the one to love you forever.' 

Maybe it was a bit late, but I should've snorted in disbelief when she said it. Part of me was furious at myself as well for letting it get this far, and I vowed not to be so stupidly naive ever again. When everything was kept away, hidden so I wouldn't have to look at the bastard's lies anymore, I took my phone, which I'd tossed to the other end of the bed.