A Broken Act

Act XI

This is very messy and rushed, meaning that it also wasn't edited (when did I ever edit my works?). Please be good to me.

*****

"Maybe you two just aren't meant to be." Hange's voice was soft and mellow, words coming out slowly and carefully as if they didn't want me to be in more pain than I already was, but the words didn't sound like that when it reached my mind. It was loud, it was deafening, and it sure as hell wasn't any less painful. Their words were echoing inside my head, repeating the message torturously.

No matter where you look, it was the truth. No matter how perfect my life and relationship with Eren has been, it still didn't matter if we weren't meant to be together in the first place. Maybe life was just being good to me and let me experience something that was supposed to be kept forever, something that made me feel happy and alive even just for a short period of time. Or maybe it was being a fucking tease and let me have a taste of something perfect, something that was all I ever wanted but would never get. Or maybe it was just a fucking dick to take everything that I had in a chain of twisted events and wake me up from the rose-colored dream that I had mistaken from reality.

But I already accepted that truth, didn't I? That was the reason why I agreed without hesitation when my mother asked me if it was okay for me to move out and leave what I had in that town behind. That was why I did my best to forget every stupid little things that reminded me of him, the reason why I built what I thought was a better version of me.

I broke my gaze away from Hange and set it on the floor, my hands helplessly clenching beside me.

"Are you okay, Levi?" Am I okay? How am I supposed to answer that? Before, I wouldn't find it hard to lie to them and tell them that I'm okay with a straight face just to hide that I'm not. This time, it's different. That encounter with Eren ticked everything off balance, leaving me teetering over the shitty edge. My mind was screaming something incomprehensible to me, emotions I had never experienced for a long time coming at me like strong waves, unrelenting. How am I supposed to say that I'm fucking okay just to not make them worry?

"I'm not, Hange." My voice cracked, waves of emotion slowly pouring out of the cracks that Eren left behind on my wall. "I'm not okay. Not sure if I ever fucking was."

"You don't have to be okay. No one was asking you to be okay." Hange scooted closer to me, bringing their arm up and settled it over my shoulder before pulling me closer to them. "Thank you for being honest with me, Levi."

Silence fell between us like a blanket while Hange was letting me compose myself out of the wreck that I had been. I took deep breaths to calm the rage that was flaring up inside me, sorting through the mess that was my thoughts. After letting some more minutes to pass by in silence, I spoke, my voice still unsteady.

"If only I knew much earlier that Eren was the other lead, I wouldn't have taken this fucking role."

"Then why didn't you back out of it when you saw him after the first meeting? He was the reason why you looked so pale and sick back then. Did you really think that I didn't notice it?"

I supposed that this was a great time to scowl at them but I didn't have the energy or will to do so, prompting to just slump on the seat instead, eyes still fixed on the ground as my mind flew back to the time where I saw him again for the first time in years. It felt like seeing a ghost. My blood ran cold. My heart rate accelerated. My breathing came out heavily, knees as sturdy as a fucking jelly. Seeing the boy who broke me in a form of a grown man was an experience that I wouldn't fucking forget. It wasn't pleasant. It's shit ton of miles away from it.