The Choreographer

38: Loved Me

"You know what we need?" Harry asks me a week after the New Year.

"No, what?" I ask him, wiping down the kitchen counter while he sweeps the floor.

"A pillow talk." He says.

I give him a look.

"A heart to heart, if you will." He says.

"Why?" I ask him.

"You cried yesterday watching Pride and Prejudice. That's not a movie that you are supposed to cry over." Harry points out.

"I was just feeling emotional." I say.

"About?" He asks, throwing all the swept up crumbs in the garbage can.

"Just..." I turn and look at him. I sigh, studying his face.

"I'm not prying in order to have any personal gain. Except maybe to get to know you better." He tells me.

"I just miss my mom." I tell him, feeling like a kid while saying this. Like I'm in preschool again and I want my mom to pick me up. Mr. Darcy made me cry because my mom and I were in love with him together, we watched Pride and Prejudice all the time together.

I throw the rag in the sink and smile tightly as I walk out the kitchen and past Harry.

"Come here." Harry says to me and I turn around and look at him.

"I don't want to talk about it." I tell him.

He gives me a look. One of disbelief and irritation. "Seriously?"

"Seriously what?" I say, rubbing a hand over my face.

"You really don't want to open up to me?" He asks, looking fed up.

At first I'm annoyed but then I realize that I honestly can't blame him, I am closed off and this is ridiculous.

I pause for a second and self reflect. Should I even be in a relationship if I can't open up and give someone as something as simple as my feelings of homesickness which are perfectly normal when one moves to a different country.

I shouldn't. I look up at Harry.

He knows something is very wrong. "Isabel?"

I shake my head. "You deserve someone who can talk to you about themselves, Harry." I tell him. This isn't even about me, this is for Harry.

"Wait, what?" He says, walking over to me, looking concerned.

"You do. And Harry...I'm just not there." I tell him.

"Stop talking." He tells me, and wraps his arms around me.

"I'm dysfunctional." I pull away from him. "And you should aspire for more."

"Are you being insecure, I don't understand..." Harry tries to make sense of me.

"I'm being realistic, because I love you." I tell him.

"You love me." He repeats. "Then why does it feel like your shutting me out?"

"Because sometimes you aren't supposed to get what you think you deserve." I tell him honestly.

Harry looks up at me, he was staring at the floor. "I don't want to find out what I'm supposed to get if it's not you."

Is he crying? I take a deep breath. I am not insecure about this right now. Harry loved me and I love him, but that doesn't me that I am the best he should get. I will be someone's best, maybe just not his.

"We could just try to take a break?" I offer.

Harry shakes his head. "Please don't say that you're doing this."

"Don't you wonder?" I ask him. "Wonder what it would be like to date someone, a fan, who will work just as hard as you in a relationship?"

"Dammit Isabel, you've worked harder than I have in this relationship." He tells me, his voice angry, to mask the hurt. "You didn't talk to me at all when we first went out, do you realize how far you have come, for you, and for me? Do you think that I don't see that? Do you think that I think that I do all the work in the relationship? Because I don't."

I am silent for a moment before I shake my head. "I love you Harry, but that shouldn't have to be something that was achived during a relationship, it should already be there."

"So it's over." Harry says. "On a stupid Tuesday, when you slept in my arms last night, and woke me up talking in your sleep. At stupid 4:16 in the afternoon when this time yesterday you were making pancakes because you had to have breakfast for dinner. On a stupid weekday when yesterday everything was perfect." He pauses. "And you say you love me."

I feel the sting of his last comment. I don't retaliate. He's right to be angry, he's right to be hurt. But this isn't about me, or his possible future Jessica, this is about him. He deserves more.

He leaves, slamming the door on his way out.

He's angry right now, because he's remembering when we were perfect, when a moment was infinity, when we were on the same team. Hind sight often takes on a rose colored lens. He's not going to remember all the times I've yelled at him because I couldn' t tell him what was bothering me, or how I broke up with him last summer because I was insecure. He's not remembering that. But when he does, he will know that I did this because I love him.

I just hope that when he realizes all of this that he remembers why he once loved me.