Before it ends

Rejuvenation: the action or process of making someone feel better.
I expected everything to change, after a couple weeks of not speaking to her I wouldn't wonder; about all the things unsaid and forgotten. It didn't work, in fact it did the opposite, that's why I'm sat on her doorstep, waiting. What I'm going to say to her is still uncertain, how I'm going to feel when I see her, what I'm going to do, none of it's clear. Then again, nothing was clear when we were together, I just trusted myself more, I trusted her more, and look where that got me. A tinted black Mercedes pulls up outside her house, a swash of blue hair jumps out and the car takes off. She doesn't see me until she's halfway up her drive, but I see her. She's wearing a baby pink dress, all glammed up. Her heels are strapped on and her makeup lightly done, except it's smudged, she wears bed hair and light bags under her eyes.
"Hayley." Her eyes meet mine for a second and I think I shiver.
"What are you doing here?" She stills.
"We need to talk."
"Why now?"
"I missed you."
"Huh." She scoffs. "After everything, you missed me. I'd hate me right now Ryan."
"I'm not gonna say I don't hate you, I'm not gonna say I do. I guess it depends on how this talk goes now doesn't it?" I see her nodd before she pulls out her keys.
"Come in." She leads me up to her room and closes the door behind us. Everything's exactly the same, the walls, the books, the smell. It's identical yet so different at the same time.
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why?" I choke out the same question. "Why Hayley, I don't- I don't get it. What did I do? What did I say?"
"It wasn't you."
"It must've been, because I did everything I could to make you trust me. I tried."
"I know." She places her hands in her lap and sits on the edge of her bed. "It's a long story."
"I'm ready for it."
"You deserve the truth. I know you do, but I was just so scared to tell you."
"Tell me what, Hayley?"
"Before you." Her eyes began to gloss over. "I was bad person, I was always drunk or high or both. I partied and I was so self centred that I had few friends. Vee and me we were those girls. I was so much like her, and seeing you hate her, I just- I knew you would've hated me. I made her look like an angel Ryan. She had nothing on me. I remember she liked Jake, I didn't particularly have any interest in him, but Vee liked him and I was a bitch. So I slept with him." She looked up at me and I tried to show as little emotion as possible, I tried not to show my disgust, my pity, any of it.
"I did it because it was fun, I did it and I bragged." A tear slid down her cheek, I watched it fall fighting the urge to cut across the room and catch it, to feel her face under my hands.
"Then I got pregnant."
"What?" I looked up at her.
"I was pregnant and I had no one, I had to get rid of it, I told him after it was gone, he didn't care Ry. He told me I was easy, that I would've been a shit mum and that I made the right decision, he made me feel like nothing- but I was young and the time we had spent together made me feel close to him, I thought I loved him. I didn't." She stands up and heads towards me. "I love you. I know what love is now and it wasn't that, he's just, he's who I go to, when I feel like trash, when I've done something horrible. I go to him because he can't look down on me, because he's nothing and I'm nothing and we're nothing."
"You're not nothing." She looks almost surprised to hear me say that. Tears stain her cheeks and she can hardly bare to look at me.
"I couldn't tell you because I was scared of what you'd think. I buried it so deep, under everything, I tried so hard not to think about it, "
"I get it." I don't, but maybe she needs to hear that. I don't get how she felt, or what position she was in. I could never get it, but I could sympathise, I could hate Jake for what he did for her. I could want to protect her.
"I'm sorry Ryan, you didn't deserve-" I cross the room and wrap my arms around her.
"You didn't deserve what happened to you. You. Don't worry about me."
"I love you Ryan."
And those words would have made my heart clench, my eyes widen. They would have meant the world to me a month ago, but something's shifted.
How do you tell the girl you thought you loved that everything is different now, how do you tell her you can't say it back?
"I don't think you understand how much I've missed you." I squeeze her tighter. "But we can't just go back to how things were." Her body stiffens in my arms and she pulls away.
My eyes rake over her body, over everything that used to be mine, over the smudged lipstick and frayed hair. All the tell-tale signs that in fact she was someone else's completely.
"Don't look at me like that?" She snaps me out of my gaze.
"Like what?"
"Like you're ashamed of me."
"It's not like th-"
"Don't lie-" There's a bitter edge to her tone. She's projecting. She's ashamed of herself.
"Were you with him?" The question is finally spoken.
"What?"
"You're dressed in last nights clothes. You're makeup smudged, you smell like cologne." I meet my eyes with hers. "Were you with him?" She doesn't answer. She doesn't have to.

God. I'm breaking.

It takes all I have not to collapse, to fall to my knees and cry. To cry because the girl I love doesn't love me half as much as I thought she did, because she made a mistake, again; because we seem to be on this downward spiral.
"I would have given you anything." I don't realise how weak I sound until I've said the words. But I'm tired, too tired to care.
"Ryan, please stay." She's not crying, her eyes are glossy and she looks as if she's debating whether to let me see the real her one last time or put back up her walls, because that's how easy it is for a girl like Hayley Rhys.
"I wish I could." I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to say before I say it, but all of a sudden I'm angry. I'm angry at her, for making me love her, for making me forgive her, for it all.
"I fell in love with you." My hand goes to her cheek and she smiles into, letting the barriers drop, letting herself feel. Every sparkle in her eyes tell me she's vulnerable, but for a second I don't care, for a second all I want to do is hurt her. "I loved the girl you were, not this." My hand falls back by my side. "Not the girl everyone told me you really were, warned me to stay away from. You were right, I would never have fallen in love with this version. Ever." I almost regret the words as they leave my mouth. She steps back almost as if she'd been shot in the chest.
There are no more words to share, so I leave, in silence, the same way I came; without her by my side.