You make the decision for me and for the first time in a very long time, I feel gratitude to you. See, I fret and I pace and I allow my emotions to drown me into a sense of overwhelming panic but not this time.
No, this time Normani comes out and she tells me you want me to leave and that makes my decision so much easier. I can leave, I know I want to leave and I know I should because if I stay then I take a hundred steps back from the life I am making for myself.
So I do leave. I do it because this time I know I am worth more than to be side-lined by your poor decisions. I am worth more than to be thought of as being irrational when I tell you that this business is not for you. Because it isn't.
You are not this person, Lauren, and you know it. You know it the very same way I know it. You are gentle and you care about people and you understand that life is precious.
So you are not this person, you are not the person who hits other women for a man who finds it a sport. You have deluded yourself into thinking you can be this cold, hard person that you are not and I do not intend to stand beside you and encourage this twisted fantasy.
That's not to say I don't understand why you do it, I do. I understand what my life means to you because yours means the same to me. But I also understand that if the roles were reversed, I would have told you. I could not hide something so significant from the person I love. I could not hold her at night knowing that I could do so purely because I had hurt another.
You would have known about my actions.
But you lied to me. You lied and you hurt and you looked me in the eyes and told me you loved me with those same lies settled on the very tip of your tongue.
So I decide now that I don't deserve the deception. I don't deserve to be cheated in that way, to be made a second thought. We could have worked something out together, thought over our options and made a plan together but instead, you decide to leave me in the shadow of your mind.
I love you and I hate you and I can't decide which is stronger.
And I know, I know I will be back to see you because I know my heart will not settle until you are out of the hospital and declared physically healed. I know I will see you again and I know I will care but I also know that I will not let you near me again.
Because I know I deserve better now.
"Hey!" My head snaps to the side and I see Normani cruising beside me as I walk with heated anger towards the bus stop. "Get in, I'll give you a ride home."
I have nothing against Normani so I have no reason to refuse her.
"I don't want to talk about her." I warn as I settle into the passenger seat, rubbing my forehead in an attempt to eradicate my emerging headache.
"I can respect that," She's nice, Normani. She is the exact type of person I can understand to be your friend. She's precise with her words and actions, nothing is done without thought. "What have you been doing with yourself after the-uh-fuck it-the break up?"
"Thinking, mostly."
"Yeah, I guess you have a lot of time to do that now."
"I always had time to think," I scoff. Thinking is the one thing that had been a constant in our relationship on my end. I was always stuck in a constant stream of thought. Where are you? What time will you be home? Am I not enough? Are you with someone else? Thinking was certainly not lacking on my part. "Do you approve of what she's doing?"
"I thought we weren't talking about her?"
"I don't know you and you don't know me but we both know her."
"I don't approve of what she's doing but I've seen Mr. Buckley," Normani casts a glance to me and I steel my face of any reaction. "He has bodyguards, he has money. If he wants to hurt her...he can hurt her."
"And by hurt her...you mean me. He can get to me." She nods and I sigh. "I don't want to be a part of any of this."
"She's not asking you to be."
"I love her." The words feel like acid on my tongue when they'd once been the most gentle caress.
"That's gotta suck." The car comes to a stop and Normani turns her entire body to face me. "Want my advice?" I nod. "Get as far away from each other as you possibly can. Set each other free. You're both fighting a losing battle here."
"And by losing battle, you mean...?"
"I mean love," Normani shrugs. "I mean that despite what I'm telling you now...you won't go. You won't leave and then some time down the track, you'll fall right back into this little cycle you two have going on. That's the beauty of true love, Camila. It can either make you or break you."
No other words are exchanged between us and I don't think any more are necessary. She has said her piece and I have said mine and I retreat back to the house that has felt more like home recently than any other place I'd stayed with you.
This house is warm and I know Ally will be here and I know I can depend on her to talk to me. She's a friend that's a constant, not a girlfriend that's a maybe.
And I think that's why Normani is wrong. I don't think we will fall back into the cycle, I think I've ruptured the cycle. I think you will find someone else and I think I can as well. We don't have to destroy each other, we don't have to be 'the one' for each other. Maybe we were 'the one' for a fraction of each other's lives and we are now able to truly find our other halves.
Because that's the thing, Lauren. I don't know if you are my soulmate anymore. I don't know if you ever were. Where I once thought we fit like perfect puzzle pieces, I was proven wrong by the divide that became your lies and my compliance to them.
I have to believe that soulmates would never have to fight this many battles with the hope that there will be a happy ending.
We've been fighting for us for so long that I no longer know if any of it is actually for love or security.
For the first time in six years, I am left questioning your mind again. Questioning my feelings. Because since the innocent age of sixteen, I allowed my heart to be yours and yours became mine. I fought against my mind telling me that our hearts would change our lives and now I find myself agreeing with it.
Our hearts did change our lives and for a moment it was for the best, we were happy and we lathered in that bliss.
And now here we are where I look at you and I don't see the person I loved back then looking back at me.
Perhaps all these years we were clinging to that moment of bliss in our lives in the hopes that we could return to it.
But I ask you this now, Lauren...what if we can't?
