Beginnings and Endings [complete]

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Seven

"What?" I asked sharply, putting my ear to the phone.

"Hey," he replied, in the same quiet, reserved tone I used.

"Why are you calling?"

"Why else would I call?" he snapped, his voice rising immediately. I wanted to hang up then and there, but I bit my lip and forced myself to endure it, however much I hated the situation I was in.

"Because you wanted to talk?" My reply was dripping sarcasm and anger, but he didn't seem to get it. Instead he stayed quiet. In fact, we were both quiet for the next fifteen minutes before I lost my patience and snapped. "If you don't wanna talk, why call me?"

All I could hear on the other end was a crackling sound, the kind that you hear when there was little background noise. For a while I thought he fell asleep, and I'd been about to hang up in disgust when he said angrily, "I do wanna talk, alright?"

"Gee, well, good luck convincing me," I retorted. This was not the best way to go, but I was just dying to yell at him, scream and accuse him and list all his mistakes, make him feel guilty and not just beg for me again, but grovel on his knees in front of me.

"Fuck it..." he muttered, probably assuming that it was out of my earshot, but it wasn't.

That was when I really snapped. "You know what?" I shouted as loud as I could without waking anyone up. The blanket over my mouth really helped muffle the sound. "If you really wanna talk, then I suggest you calm the fuck down. If not then there's no fucking point in us talking."

My thumb hovered over the End button, waiting for his response. If it didn't come, I will hang up and switch off my phone. Whatever he tried to do tomorrow I'll just deal with it professionally and walk away, never to turn back again. If he replied, it depends what he says.

"Don't hang up," he whispered suddenly when I almost pressed the button. What, did he have psychic powers or something? "Please don't hang up."

"Then calm the fuck down, if not we're never gonna get anywhere," I shot back, ignoring the pang his soft voice made to my heart. He sounded so desperate, so full of longing and regret I wanted to run to him then and there but... Enough was just enough.

It took another five minutes before he spoke again. SOS credit meant only having one hour to talk, so he officially had another half an hour to settle this. My heart thumped in anticipation. As much as I wanted to scream so hard at him his eardrums would crack, I also really, really wanted this resolved and over with. Just let me look at it as my past, I thought sadly. Since there isn't a future for us anymore.

"I'm sorry," he murmured softly. "I'm...I'm so sorry. For everything."

Despite the tears already building in my eyes, the pathetic show of weakness, I blinked them away with a furious vengeance, trying to ignored the increasing pain my heart was enduring. It wasn't just numb anymore, it was like multiple stabs over and over again. "And you think sorry will make everything okay again?" I asked bitterly, my voice cracking. "Think again, Xavier."

I could hear the wince as I called him by his first name. I don't know why but he considered it a big thing whenever we didn't use pet names for each other. At first, I thought it was weird. Then his name began to sound foreign in my voice, the way it did now.

"I'll make it up to you," he offered desperately. It was so clear in his voice the regret and the longing. I had to steel myself against it again. "I'll make it up to you."

Somehow I doubt that. As I stayed silent, he went on talking. I just listened to long apologies, new promises he'd probably break later on, trying to stem the rising hope he was causing. "Why did you do it?" I interrupted suddenly, breaking a particularly long sentence about how he meant everything that he said to me. I just needed to hear it from him. For real. When he didn't reply, I went on to say, "I mean, if you weren't happy, and I wasn't good enough, you didn't need to cheat..."