A Silhouette and Maybe More

Whirlpool Of Decisions

He thought things through before he said anything else, questioning himself whether to believe me or not. For the moment he believed me, but he wasn't willing to just move on, he had a reputation to keep. Taking one step closer he grabbed my face with one hand and squeezed it tight, our noses barely touching, I felt his hot breath making contact with my face while whenever he spoke.

"If I find out you're lying, I won't be so forgiving next time." He threatened through his clenched teeth. He threw me away and stormed out the room and into his bedroom slamming the door as an indication of his anger. I rubbed my cheeks, feeling the marks left by his nails.

"There wouldn't be a next time if you knew the truth." I muttered to myself. Why do I always let him get the better of me? I should be the one in power, I have that decision to leave but yet he begs me to stay. I warned him when I first made my decision that if I didn't like anything I saw, I would leave immediately, so why haven't I left?

And the answer? I liked him, in both senses of the meaning.

It's true, as annoyingly temperamental and unpredictable as he is, there was something about him that intrigued me, maybe it was the desperate need for company, or how he never means to be the way he is as nostalgia has a massive influence on him, or maybe it was the jealousy that built up inside me the moment I saw that picture of him and Angela. I was embedded in the multiple choices and decisions that I needed to make; whether or not to tell him I liked him, whether or not to bring up Angela and the most important one...whether to leave or not. I felt like I was stuck in a massive pothole that was completely inescapable with Dan standing at the entrance teasing me when helping me up but letting me go half way to fall back into my whirlpool of problems.

I exited the room and stood in the hallway, my focus on nothing but the front door. That familiar temptation of escaping came my way again. That urge to sprint down the driveway was persuading my body to take it into consideration and just go for it. However, there's Dan. I couldn't just leave him, although after tonight I was considering that option. Today had been the best but also the worst for Dan based on his behaviour; redecorating the room to my liking but screaming in my face because of a false accusation. I couldn't take it anymore, the stress was too much. Instead going out the front door I went out the back and ran straight for the trees in the distance, a place I could go but not leave entirely. The faster I ran the more tears fell from my eyes and get blown away from the wind, the half-grown crops whipping my body as I forced my way through them leaving a path behind me. My overpowering emotions made my body turn to jelly, tired from my one-hundred-or-so metre sprint. I was about 30 seconds away from the finishing line; the woods.

I arrived there stopping at the first bulky tree I found and leaned against it gaining my breath back. I turned round to face the way I came with the farm house that contained a furious Dan, sticking out like a sore thumb against the majestic wave of golden crops flowing in the wind in synchronisation, then I realised that Dan's bedroom window looked out onto the field I had just ran through. There was a small chance that he had managed to witness my sudden get away but it was highly unlikely, the house was too far away from me to tell anyway.

Shaking my head in ignorance I ventured further into the huddle of trees. Plenty of the trees looked climbable and that was exactly what I was going to do but first, I had to find the tallest one that happened to be slap bang in the middle. Branch by branch I climbed higher and higher overlooking the smaller trees below me, I was now at what I considered a dangerous height meaning that if I was to fall, it would really hurt, but I was careful. Content with the branch and the view, I sat comfortably on a wide branch staring out in the ocean of orange, the wind seemingly blowing the problems away and never to come back, but reality was never that simple. There wasn't some special place that you could go when feeling stressed and it would magically take it all away, I wasn't foolish to think that way, I simply recognised it as being a temporary resort.