Octopus Lips

Falling Apart the Hard Way

For a moment all I can is sit in the car and cry.

Gordon cheated on me. He cheated on me with that girl, regularly, and possibly with even more girls. I had put him up on his pedestal as my one and only, my soulmate, to find out I was worth nothing more then loose change you found on the ground in the dirty parking lots of cramped cities. I was trash to him. I can't believe I let myself trust him like that. I can't believe I opened myself up only to be stabbed in the back by my own Brutus. I should have known. I should have seen the signs... by the way he would keep information from me... he never really trusted me. He doesn't trust anyone, I was stupid to think I was different then everyone else.

I held out my hand and I could still feel the red string tied around my pinky finger, I wanted to strangle him with it.

The drive back home was filled with silence. I didn't turn on the radio. I clenched the steering wheel between white knuckles, which stopped them from trembling. My mind was a maelstrom, with each negative and horrible realization hitting my mind like a riptide and eroding me slowly and painfully. My whole body felt raw, and brittle, like I was a small bird clamped in between a wolf's jaws. My heart was... my heart was gone. There was a gaping hole where it should have been. I could reach into my chest cavity and feel nothing my raw, aching walls.

I slammed the door to my room, and turned to my bed, curling the sheets into my fists and screamed into the pillow, which did little to mask the noise and my trembling body. I glanced up at my walls, covered in pictures and memorabilia. Pictures of Gordon I had treasured because I barely ever got him to smile. I guess I knew why. I flew at them, ripping them off the walls. I caught my face in the mirror, tear-stained, angry, my makeup was running down my face as my fingers curled around the precious images all tied together by a red string.

This stupid red string.

I grabbed a lighter and set it all on fire in the trash bin in my room. It crackled and I grit my teeth, drinking in the satisfying feeling like a parched deer. I wanted nothing more then to cause Gordon as much pain as I was feeling, I hope he was suffering, I wanted him to suffer. It was scary and the last rational part of my brain suggested I do something about that. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and dialed up Rosie.

"Gwen?" She was immediately concerned. "Is everything all right?"

"N-no." I stiffed and stammered, it somehow hurt more out loud. "No, it's not. Is it... is it okay if I come over?"

"Of course!"

I put out the trash fire and jumped back in the car. My parents weren't even home yet so I texted them I would be staying over at Rosie's. It wasn't out of the ordinary. I pulled into her driveway only to find she was waiting for me. Her sweet brown eyes widened when she saw my face, and she hugged me tightly when I walked up to her, crying still.

"What happened?" She asked as she wiped the makeup off my face in her bathroom.

"Gordon cheated on me." I said, through shaking breaths.

Her eyes widened and she hesitated for a moment, then dabbed my face with the towel.

"That's... is that why he was gone this morning? You don't think he was sneaking off to go see another girl?" She stopped.

My hands clenched around the cold marble counter. "Oh God."

"I'm sorry I just... what a scumbag." She hissed.

I looked up at her miserably and noticed even she was getting angry. Rosie never got angry. She was as serene as the lily pads in unbothered ponds of water, and as angelic as stained glass in a church. She was my best friend and I didn't deserve her.

My phone beside me on the counter started buzzing a going off. I looked down with a heavy heart to see they were all from Gordon. He was probably trying to explain himself. I could picture him in my head, hands clenched around his phone with his nose scrunched up slightly, and that was one of his stronger emotions. Rosie picked up my phone and shut it off, watching me carefully. I clenched the white marble of her bathroom counter and felt another wave of tears overcome me.

"I still love him Rosie." I sobbed, reaching up my shaking hands to wipe away the waterfall. "I hate him."

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly, swaying gently. "Hey hey... it's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay Gwen, you're here now with me, it's going to be alright."

"I still love his stupid persistence and his dumb lopsided smiles. I hate how I feel safe around him. I hate him." I cried into her shoulder. "God, I hate him so much."

She rubbed my back gently. "It's okay, it's okay."

I had never felt so stripped down to my bones before. I had never felt like I was freefalling with nothing to grab onto. I had never been... unstable. He was my soulmate. He is my soulmate. For two years we had been together. Two years, and he'd rather cope with whatever he's going through with strangers than me.

I opened my hand and summoned the red string of fate one more. It was curled around my pinky finger and trailed down the walls onto the floor and under the doorway. It felt more like a sting binding me like Prometheus to his rock while a vulture eats his insides then a pathway to my soulmate. It wasn't freedom anymore, it was a trap. I tried to grasp it and my first impulse was to try and pulling it off, but my fingers passed through it like it was an illusion. It made me feel sick.

"Come on." Rosie said gently, her voice as soft as rose petals. "Let's go make cookies, we can chill and watch The Office, or whatever you want."

She left her forehead rest against mine, and squeezed my hand gently, causing the red string to dissipate into the air. I laughed weakly, and sniffed, wiping my face.

"Yeah... yeah okay." I agreed.

A few hours of Michael Scott and three batches of chocolate chip cookies later, night had fallen and my eyes were dry but puffy. Rosie was blessed with a few bean bags in her room and that's where we had crashed momentarily. The world felt hazy and caramel colored but it was comfortable and I wasn't crying anymore.

"Hey Gwen?" Rosie asked, gently.

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to break up with him?"

I swallowed hoarsely. "I don't know."

"Do you still want to be in a relationship with him?"

I shook my head. "No... but can you do that? Can you break up with your soulmate?"

Rosie glanced over at me with her sweet brown eyes. "Why not?"

Why not? The question hit me hard, straight to the gut. I didn't know how to answer her for a moment. I just sat there and stared at the darkness on her face as they flickered back and forth, pink and yellow, cast by the drone of the Tv in the darkness. The light slid down the bridge of her nose and danced though every dark frizzy curl in her hair.

"Huh." I said, finally.

"You think you will?"

"I think... I will." I blinked.

Why not?

Maybe Johnny Laurens and his cynical approach on soulmates had some merit. He didn't care. He flirted recklessly and shamelessly like a runway love train. Technically, it was just a string. There was nothing stopping me from dating whoever I wanted. There was nothing stopping me from not dating. It was a suggestion at best, just because I know it's Gordon, doesn't mean I have to do anything about that. I can do whatever I want.

"That's the spirit." Rosie gave me some tired thumbs up.

"Thank you." I said to her.

"It's no problem." She brushed it off. "I'll always be here for you, Gwen."

I never doubted it.