Holding Hands Won't Be Enough

Chapter 1: The End & The Beginning

Ville followed her frantically around the room as she grabbed items that belonged to him. "Milly, Milly, Milly, you can't do this," he exclaimed, attempting to grab her arms, "Milly, Milly!" she pushed him forcefully aside and strode purposefully through the door, "Let me ex- Milly, we have to talk about this!"

"No we don't." she replied coldly.

"You have to give me a chance to explain!" he begged, hurriedly following her down the stairs, desperate to have her listen. "What are you doing? What are you doing with my things, Milly?!" she scooped up the discarded heels she had already thrown down as her feet met the tiles at the bottom.

"It was just this one time! I know that's what people say. I know that's what always gets said! I just don't even know how it happened; I don't know what I was thinking. It was just she was just here, it was just-"

"All you have to say is - she was just here?"

"I promise and it'll never happen again. Milly, I love you!" she marched toward the front door, seething. She swung it open and threw the pile of his clothes and her shoes out into the rainy street.

"Get out." she demanded, motioning outside.

"No."

"Please get out of my house."

"No, no I'm not going. We can talk about this." She grabbed the guitar he had left by the door and tossed it with anger out to join his belongings - it meeting the concrete with a hollow bang.

"Get out of my house now." she growled. He sat down on the stairs, holding onto the banister defiantly.

"No, we don't quit Milly. We don't quit. We have to work this out."

"Get out!" she yelled, finally raising her voice. She grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet and towards the door.

"What are you doing? Milly?" he asked, increasingly more desperate. She pulled him into a position that enabled her to push him with force through the door, slamming it closed after him. Her feet slid slightly on the tiles where the rain had come in from the open door. Through the stained glass, their hands were mirroring each other in placement - upon noticing she turned and leant against the door, her head a pulsating blur.

"No, no." he cried in heavy sobs, pounding his hands on the door. "Please, Mil, please. Please." his voice carried through the entry way, his baritone reverberating in her chest. She turned and against her better judgement opened the door, letting him in. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." he stammered, hurrying himself inside, "You have to give me a chance." He cried, pulling her stiff body against him gingerly. "You have to give me a chance to show you how sorry I am. Okay? Okay?" he repeated, she pulled away from him and shut the door.

"Okay." she said simply. His eyes widened and he grabbed her hands.

"Okay." she nodded, but her brow furrowed.

"I'm going to go, you stay..." she snatched her hands away from his, "Do whatever with-" she winced, not being able to bring herself to say her name she just pointed up, "I'll get my stuff in the morning."

"No, no, no, no, no, no." he repeated, "We can survive this. Milly, we can get through this. We're... we're us."

"Stop touching me." she snarled, "I can't look at you. I look at you and I feel nauseated." he lurched forward to touch her again, desperately hoping she didn't mean it, "Stop it!" she shouted, "I don't want to look at you and feel anything, I want to feel nothing. This isn't us. We're not... we're not us anymore." she said, picking up the bag and umbrella she had come in with.

"If you... If you go now we are not going to get through this! If you go now, we don't have a chance. We don't have a chance. If you go now we-", she didn't hear then end of what he was saying, the door closed behind her and so did that chapter of her life.

She never came back for her things, instead her sister Sonia came and packed them up, refusing to talk or even look at him. He called the only person he knew she would have told. After begging and pleading and promising that he would do whatever it took to make this right, the answer to where she was, was given up begrudgingly.

He wasn't allowed to drive but nothing was going to stop him. Taking her car she had left he raced to the airport, ignoring all road signs, traffic lights and disgruntled drivers on their horns. He didn't park, he abandoned the car almost completely on the sidewalk outside the departures terminal entrance. Finding the correct desk from the information board, he ran to the other side of the airport, his asthmatic lungs threatening to burst at any given second.

"Please! You have to let me get on that plane, please, I'm begging you!"

"Sir, like I said before, I simply cannot let you board without a boarding pass, and as we established, you do not have one; so I'm afraid the answer is still, no." the lounge clerk said calmly, though clearly losing his patience.

"Anything, please! Please, you don't understand." he begged, desperately.

"Sir, even if you were to run back into the check in desks, book and pay for a ticket, and run back right now, the gate closed five minutes ago and the craft is about to be taxied onto the runway. There is quite simply no way I can help you, other than, booking you onto the next direct flight to Paris?"

His heart was beating a mile a minute, he wanted with every fibre and sinew of his body to get on the next flight and follow her to Paris, but even then, how would he find her? He knew of no one that knew her there. He tore his gaze from staring intently out the large glass windows at the plane she was on, to the clerk, who stood patiently awaiting his reply. He sighed heavily, knowing he was giving up, and reluctantly shook his head.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir."

"Yeah," he frowned, dragging his hair out of his sweat-sticky face, "you have no fucking idea."