He's not saying anything.
Her heart quivers and it feels like there's something lodged in her chest. She's still except for the barest shake of her shoulders, but for the first time, he's not noticing any of it. He isn't even looking at her.
Her heart drops. Suddenly, she feels like she's holding on to something so thin and fragile and so broken that it might not be worth hanging onto anymore. She can scarcely breathe for fear that she might shatter it.
It?
She didn't know what it was anymore, didn't know what it had become, or what they'd done to it.
But it feels like it's gone. No, not gone. Just broken is all. Torn on one side, while the other struggles to mend it. It might be considered pathetic of her, she knows. But she's never been known to give up easily, she's never known when to let go of something.
And especially something so precious.
"Say something," she whispers. Her voice cracks, and she knows she sounds soft and afraid and beaten even when she tries to show that she isn't. But she can't. For once, she's crumbling beneath the blow of his silence. Her faux bravado is gone; she can't muster the strength to pull herself together anymore.
It's fruitless, at any rate.
Every one step she takes forward, she takes two steps back.
"I..."
Why is it, that his voice mirrors her own? She can still tell, with that one bittersweet sound of his voice, how he's feeling. She knows him. She knows him like no one's ever known him, like no one's ever known anyone.
"You had an affair," she murmurs quietly. The words were painfully sharp and she can't help but flinch. He's looking at her now, with that pained look in his eyes and even under the circumstances, she can't help but want to go to him and cradle his head in her hands and tell him that she's forgiven him and that it would be alright.
But it isn't.
Because sometimes, its too late to forgive, too much to take and too little to work for.
She watches him through glassy eyes, like she wants to commit every part of him to memory, even if she doesn't know why. But he's slipping through her fingers, everything is slipping through her fingers and she's finding it too hard to hold on.
"Its over," she says, but she doesn't sound convincing. She sounds desperate, despaired, beaten. She still wants him. She still loves him.
He doesn't deserve her love, she tells herself. But somehow, she can't bring herself to believe it.
"Just...why?"
She refuses to believe that she doesn't mean anything to him. That part, she knows, is not true.
When one carresses you so gentle, when one holds you in his arms so tight, when one kisses you so warm, so caring, so goddamned loving, you can't help but believe it.
He's quiet, and for a moment she doesn't think he will answer her, but then he does.
"I'm sorry."
It's hardly an answer, and she isn't going to lie. It doesn't make her feel better. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't erase the pain. It feels like a slap in the face, and now she's crumpled on the floor, fallen so weak and broken beyond repair.
Hadn't she promised herself this was never to happen to her?
But then, what were promises but empty words?
"What the hell do you mean by that?!" She says angrily. She's more hurt than angry, but what else could she do, really? "That doesn't change anything! That isn't an answer! So answer me, Liam!"
She's finally crying. Tears fall from her eyes like raindrops, and she's too tired to wipe them away.
But she doesn't need to, because he's already there.
She swipes his hands away. Don't touch me, she thinks. Not with those hands that roamed over that girl's body, not with those filthy fingers that's been god knows where. And even there, half of her aches for his touch again.
She breathes in deeply.
"Leave," she almost begs.
Any other time, he would have stayed, would have asked for her forgiveness, tell her he loved her, tell her he'd do anything to make it up to her because she was worth it. And she almost wishes he would have done that, all over again.
But...
She wasn't worth it anymore.
