Smash!

•T W E N T Y S E V E N•

Riley's POV

I can't stand her looking at me like that. Green eyes over pooling with waves of insufferable anguish. Her gaze isn't bright and clear and steady anymore, but threatening to breakout in tears, and looking at me with an alarming lack of hope. Her freckled hands don't know what do with themselves, nervously fumbling at her sides.

"You're..."

"I'm not in love you, Jamie. I love someone else." I finish it for her. Her freckled face crumbles, and I fight to keep a straight face. I hate doing this to her, I always let her down, I hate hurting her, yet that's all I do to her.

"Not that you're not important to me, Jamie, because you are." I admit. She is. Jamie is important to me. Arguably the most important thing in my life right now.

"Am I?" She quietly asks, her green eyes reflecting the light like pieces of shards of broken glass.

"Yes," I try to find a way to prove it to her, but nothing seems good enough for Jamie. "Yes, Jamie, yes."

I have such a powerful urge to escape. Run away from that teary eye gaze as fast as I can, but Jamie's crushed look keeps me rooted to the ground. No matter how much guilt weighs me down, no matter how that crushed look makes my skin crawl, I can't muster up my legs to walk out on her like this.

"Just tell me what to say to fix this." I plead, unsure what to do with my hands. Do I comfortably hug her, or is too upset at me? Tears threatening to fall, her green eyes fall shut like she's been punched.

"How?" She mutters so quietly it's as if she mouthed it. "How, when, why." She runs her hands through her red hair.

"Do you really want to know the gory details, Jamie?"

"I need to know that whatever you're picking over me is real." She manages a small nod.

"What?" Something in me feels bruised. Bruised brutally hard. "I have to validate to you? I just told you how I feel. Don't you believe me?" I spit. Declarations of love are nothing like the movies. They don't come out easily, not at all! Saying it out loud is demanding, it's harsh, and leaves me hollow.

"That's not what I meant." Her eyes pop open to reveal the worry in her eyes. "I want to know why I'm not enough."

"Why should I feel bad for having feelings for someone who just isn't you? I'm in love with someone. Life isn't a book or a movie, where the one girl with half ass cliche personality ends up the only other male. I'm not obligated to be with you! My feelings for her are not irrelevant because we had a one night stand."

"Not just a one night stand." She breathes. "We share a home. We share a life together."

"It was just sex. It wasn't a binding contract. It does cement us together." I feels like the walls are caving in on me. I feel like this is getting more pointless the longer we hash this out, with sentence just worsening than salvaging. It's aggravating. It's maddening. It's agony.

"I can't bare this." Jamie wipes tears before they fall.

"Let me make it easy on you." I growl, storming out. I'd slam the door behind me, but the fucking lock.

Jamie's POV

"Do you think he's coming back?" I whisper, curled up next to the puppy in bed. Through the darkness I easily see his blonde fur as he ignores me and sinks his little teeth into the back of my hand.

"Maybe he'll disappear for another week." I whisper. "Perhaps, longer. Maybe a month this time."

"Maybe never." For the first time since our fight I break out in tears. I teared up earlier, but now alone and pathetic in the dark, I wail. My shoulders tremble as big, hot tears rush down my face, and hang off my jaw. My throat swells up, yet I can't get a grip. Ugly sobs choke me, but I can't find enough strength to stop.