It is thought that a damn good cry can make you feel better...well, it doesn't.

Since returning home, I have cried a lot.

I have moped a lot.

Thought about what I am to do, a lot.

After all of that crying, the moping and the thinking, I'm still not even close to feeling any better. There's a big and dark disappointment swelling within me. An endless and numb void that just won't be filled.

Poor Nancy got woken up by me arriving back home in the early hours, and all of my tears and all of our quiet and emotional talking until dawn, will no doubt make her day at work now feel like a really hellish one.

She was so sweet, so understanding.

She didn't question my reasons for leaving. She didn't even judge Doug. All she said was that once the emotional dust had settled, that both me and Doug were going to have to have a very frank and very difficult conversation with one another. She also said that I ran, because I care. That I'm upset, because I care. Which I know is right. Nancy, is right about everything.

But, I'm still so upset.

Everything is still a foggy chaos inside my head.

I've showered.

I've unpacked.

And I need some sleep.

Locking the door that connects my flat to the main house, I feel ready to shut out my problems; in favour of some desperately needed sleep.

I can talk to mum and dad later. I can avoid Tezzer's being nosey about me and Doug, later too. I just need to close my sore and dry eyes. I just need my mind to quieten and for my heart to beat with less ache. As my swollen eyelids come down over my eyes that have seen and cried too much already, I become only aware of my breathing. The flat is quiet and dark. This is my small place of sanctuary. My four walls of sanity.

Here, I can let go. Here, I can breathe.

I inhale, the silent calmness.

And exhale, the painful chaos.

In and out.

In and out.

Over and over.

Slow and deep ins.

Even slower and steadier outs.

Hopefully, when I wake up later on, all will be clearer. It may not be any less painful, but all should be a little more clearer. For now, I just need the comfort of peace and quiet. The comfort of sleep.

**

I don't know how long I have been asleep for, but it feels like nowhere near enough sleep has been had.

My eyelids still feel sore and heavy.

My body still feels sore and heavy.

Even my soul still feels sore and heavy.

Exhausted and disoriented, I become aware of my mobile vibrating madly on the bedside table next to my bed. I stare at it for just a blurry couple of seconds, while it annoyingly keeps juddering around.

Stretching over, my weak fingers pick up my phone; the same phone that suddenly stops quivering in my hands. Squinting, my raw eyes can see that Doug has called me five times. Then, nearly giving me a heart attack, a text message arrives while I still have my phone held between my startled hands.

Are you home?

Is his very brief message.

Typing back with much concentration, my reply is just as brief:

Yes...why?

While I'm left wondering why he would be asking me that, a soft knock soon comes to my flat door.

He wouldn't, would he?

That is what I am inwardly wondering as I tiredly traipse across the conversion to nervously open the door. Yes, he absolutely would! Are what my thoughts promptly yell back at me while I'm now focusing on Doug in front of me.

He's standing on my doorstep, with his head hung despondently low. "We need to talk...really talk." His eyes have dark rings of devastation beneath them as they glumly stare into mine.

Allowing him inside, he lethargically does. Doug too, looks exhausted. He looks completely depleted of energy. I usually love the way he carries himself. It's usually done with such charismatic self assurance—high chinned, purposeful, and sophisticated.

His back is usually so attractively straight and his shoulders are usually strong and relaxed. He has always strolled with such sensuous and natural movements, but not now.

Now, his gait is burdened.

"What are you doing here, Doug?" All kinds of emotions are rushing through me. All kinds of emotions that my tired body just aren't yet alert enough for.

"I needed to see you. Talk face to face about what happened, Frankie." He turns where he is standing, looking me square in the eye. "I need to explain...everything."

Stood just in my camisole and my knickers, I feel coldly exposed to him. Sitting down on my sofa, I pull a fleece blanket right around myself. "You don't have to talk to me about anything, Doug. If you want to do coke, that's up to you, it's just that I don't want to be involved with someone who chooses to do that stuff."

Coming to sit down beside me, Doug heaves out a long sigh as he does. "You've got it all wrong, Frankie. If I'd known how you felt about that shit, I never would have done it...I don't even know why I did it anyway?" He's now rubbing his cheeks with his face, looking more tired than ever. "I'm not some hardcore coke head...never have been and never will be." With his elbow resting on his knee, he holds the right side of his head in the palm of his right hand. "You mean more to me than coke does, Frankie." Blinking slow, with dull exhaustion, he quietly goes on. "And what Mack told you about us sharing girls...well that was a slight exaggeration on his part." His lips pinch with annoyance, not once shifting his depressed gaze on me. "It happened one time. With one girl. And it happened a fair few years ago." Removing his elbow from his knee, he now sits straighter in his seat. "I know it still makes me sound like a total dick, but I'm not that dick anymore."

He stops talking. Instead, he's staring at me to see whether I have anything to now say to him. The thing is, I don't actually know what to say to him. I ran. I ran because I was a coward. Running is something I do when I fear that I'm going to get hurt, and last night, I feared that Doug was going to really hurt me.

The coke and the sharing girl thing, they are both my problem...not Doug's. He's a fully grown man. If he wants to take coke, he can. If he has shared a girl with his friend, that's in his past.

They are both things that I have to deal with. Not Doug.

But last night, I didn't want to deal with them.

Last night, I couldn't deal with them.

The pedestal I had put Doug on, had come crashing right down. And now he is here, I just don't know what to say.

The least I can do, is maybe try to explain why. "I'm sorry for just leaving. I tend to bail when things get too complicated. I just didn't know how to talk to you about what happened." Pulling the blanket tighter around me, I truthfully go on. "It's not for me to tell you how you are to live your life, Doug...but I can tell you how I want to live mine." Bringing my knees anxiously up to my chest, I rest my chin on them both. "Drugs just don't have any place in my life anymore."

Turning his whole body towards me, Doug has to interrupt. "I know that now. I just wish I had known it before, Frankie?"

Part of me still wants to run from this conversation, but something else keeps me seated on my sofa. Something that keeps me looking at Doug and wanting him to understand more of why I ran. "Exactly. I think we have rushed into this whole thing between us, Doug. We don't actually know each other very well at all, which is why I think last night happened."

Closing his eyes momentarily, and tilting his head slightly, he opens those dull brown eyes of his again. "I'm not wanting this to end, Frankie. So what if we've rushed into this? So what if we don't know each other very well? I'm here because I don't want us to end. I've put you before my set at Revival tonight, because I don't want you to run away from us." His hand reaches for my face, needing his fingers to caressingly convey his true feelings for me. "I'm not losing you over this, I'm not."

I want to believe him, I do...I just don't know how. "You'd end up resenting me, Doug? You're giving something up that you like doing, just because I don't like it."

Doug pulls his hand away, shaking his head from side to side with his eyes pinched shut. "You're not listening, Frankie! I don't give a shit about that shit I put up my nose last night...I give a shit about you!" There's a wild annoyance in his voice, a desperate annoyance. "You're not hearing what I am telling you. Giving up coke means nothing to me, it doesn't. I'm done with that shit. I just don't want you telling me that you're done with us?"

He's burdening me with the weight of our future; whether we have one or not. Everything was so simple before last night. Everything was so natural and so uncomplicated between us. But now, it's just an emotional wreckage. A maze of mistrust and a fearful and damaging mayhem.

Can I trust Doug?

Can I?

I want to.

I will myself to want to.

But, I just don't think I can.

"I care about you, Doug...I do." What I now need to say, seems to despairingly run back down my throat, reluctant to set free the words that simply have to be said. Taking in a strengthening deep breath, I anxiously and quietly go on. "We both need some time to think about what we really want. Let's just focus on the song, for now...don't you think?"

Again, Doug won't accept what I am saying. "I don't need time to know what I want, Frankie. I know that I want us to be together. Maybe we don't yet know each other properly, but that is why two people get together in the first place, right?"

With tense doubt, I frown harder. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything anymore." My chin rubs against my knees, while I gaze at him with hopeless blue eyes.

"You're trying to run again, Frankie. Don't start building big walls up around yourself because of me, because brick by brick, I'll pull them all back down." There's a glint of determination in his narrowed brown eyes. A determination that implores me to please just listen to him.

Still, I try to stay strong. I try to stand by all that's avalanching inside of me. "But you only let me in so far, Doug? You are always just giving me the top layer of your life, then you shift the attention somewhere else."

Breathing in hard, he pulls back his shoulders. "What do you mean?"

"Your mum...you always shut down about her." To truly understand this man, I want to understand his distant relationship with his mother.

Tensing his jaw, he thinks. Leaning forward with both his elbows on his knees, they bounce while he continues to think some more. As he hangs his stressed head down and exhales an antagonised breath, he gruffly replies. "Get dressed."

"What?"

"Please, get dressed." He's still leant forward, looking and sounding more agitated while he rubs his face with his hands.

"Why?" Comes my timid question.

Doug turns his low head sideways, his eyes so darkly now duller. "Because, Frankie...I'm going to show you the reason why I'm the way that I am."

**MALLION INTERLUDE 💋**

Phew, that was a tad intense, huh?
What are you lovelies thinking?
Will Frankie go with Doug?
What will Doug show her if she does go?
Ohhhhh, the drama!!

Your thoughts and gorgeous votes, are as always, warmly welcomed here 💋

The AH-MAZING song above is: NO GOOD - PRODIGY