Because Of You

Thirty Three - You're Smart. And You're Evasive.

I made it down to the lobby and outside of the hotel into the pool and bar area before I actually cried, but once I started it was like the floodgates were open. I didn't go back to my room, I needed to go and let off some steam, scream maybe punch something or just disappear. I definitely wasn't going up to breakfast where we had originally planned to all go and meet before we would eventually leave the hotel altogether. No instead I went down to the beach where I wasn't actually sure what I planned to do, but I'd work that out once I was there.

It was still fairly early in the morning, it must have been half past eight, maybe nine, when you go on an all inclusive beach holiday in Greece you don't often get up that early to go to the beach. So I was almost alone. That was certainly a good thing because I think I looked as terrible as I felt, baggy jeans from the night before and a t-shirt which was screwed up and creased. Paired with the bloodshot eyes and tears stained cheeks, I probably looked like a guy who had just made a really big fucking mistake and dumped the guy he was madly in love with. It would make a lot of sense for me to look like that, because that was exactly what I was.

I was a fucking idiot. Yet I still couldn't help but think maybe I'd done the right thing. I wanted to believe we were both going to benefit from what I had done, we both needed to be together or apart, not together but miles apart. That made sense that seemed logical to me. Because I needed him, I needed him so bad and he needed me too, but I needed him with me, and if he wasn't there then I needed somebody to fill his place.

That was definitely completely whack though wasn't it? Because I had Jen and I would have Jen whether I liked it or not and that meant I had someone there when Gerard couldn't be. And I would never have a lasting relationship with anyone else, not like I wanted, not like I had with Gerard, I loved him and I could never love someone else that way. Even if I could I didn't want to. Maybe if Gerard couldn't be there I would need somebody else, but I didn't want anyone else.

"Fuck!" I screamed loudly as I kicked my flip flops off angrily watching as they flew high and far down the beach ahead of me.

I didn't dare look back at the couple sat twenty odd feet behind me on the sand, I knew they'd likely be staring at me thinking how terrible a young man I was screaming and swearing on the beach. I didn't care much.

I walked a long while up the beach, picking up my flip flops when I passed them in the sand. Eventually I gave up, I had been walking for a while, and I had been holding in the tears and trying not to think of all the reasons both for and against what I had just done. With unnecessary force and anger I threw my flip flops down into the sand and then myself down next to them, sitting in the sand with my legs tucked up to my chest and my head resting on my arms across them. I just looked out at the sea.

It looked a lot different in the morning than it did in the evening; it looked different than it did when I'd been down in the afternoons with my friends. It also looked different when I was staring out at it and trying so hard not to think.

For a while I was sort of successful, I just watched the ocean and the clear sky, it was tranquil just as it always was, and it was warm and beautiful. Ironic I suppose because that didn't very well reflect the inner turmoil I was feeling. I sucked, I wasn't a beautiful beach, or a tranquil ocean, I probably didn't even deserve to sit on the soft sand, I was fucking crashing like a wave, trashing around and making a mess like the sea in a thunderstorm. It was sort of comforting to feel that way but look out at something which so graciously contradicted me.

But the tranquillity and stillness of the beach and the water, it didn't instil much stoicism in me for very long. I tried to control my mind, to just sit and compose myself, but it wasn't long before I over complicated everything again, before I was thinking about everything. It might have been okay if I stood by what I'd said, by my decision but as the minutes passed and as I thought on it more I was second guessing everything. I still thought that some of what I said was right, but the outcome was wrong, because I could live without him, but without him I was miserable at best. With him across the world it wasn't ideal, but it was better than being miserable, better than hurting him like I had.