Elliot stopped the car right in front of my house. I wasted no time in getting out. But soon I heard the door on his side also being opened. I heard the crunch of his steps on the pavement behind me. I kept on walking forward. I made myself busy by trying to find the keys from my handbag. His steps followed me.

I opened the door and left the door open behind me. I turned the lights on and without uttering a word to him, I climbed the stairs and went to my bedroom. I locked the door and removed my shoes. Soon after that, I stripped out of my red dress letting it rest on the bedroom floor. I removed the few pieces of jewellery that I had on me. I removed my undergarments and threw them near the dress. When I was fully naked I went straight to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I set the water on lukewarm point and stood under it while I hugged myself as the water fell on me. I hoped that it would be enough to wash away at least some part of the baggage that was glued to me.

I squeezed some body wash onto the pink luffa and started to rub it on my skin, trying to scrape away the bullshit that I have received today. I rubbed it on my skin till it started to feel a bit raw, guess I was overdoing it. 

Elliot was right. I shouldn't be punishing myself just because he was an asshole.

After washing away the excess soap, I turned the shower off and grabbed two towels from the cabinet. After wrapping one over my wet hair, I wrapped the other one on my body and walked out.

I looked at myself in the long vanity mirror with borders made of real gold that my grandfather had left to me when he died. I saw my tired eyes like they'd seen enough tortures for the day. The more that I looked at myself, the dumber I felt.

I had changed, it occurred to me.

I was that girl who was busy working for her goals, the studious one. I used to laugh at other girls who would let themselves be sidetracked because of boy problems. Now that I see myself in that same position, I realise how wrong I was. I was such a bitch to think like that.

You never know what someone is going through unless you've been in their shoes.

True.

Today I was that sidetracked girl. I was the lost one. Today someone else was laughing at me.

But there is also another part of me that doesn't want to give up. This part keeps on saying—so what if his feelings were fake, yours weren't, why should you not fight for him.

It said —Fight for him. Make him come to you. Spend so much love and affection on him that he's the one who's coming back to you.

Be nice. Be kind. Be understanding. Spend your positivity like you usually do. Radiate peacefulness because that's what he wants!

This idiotic voice keeps on saying to me.

But here's what I ask this stupid voice— do you even know what he wants?

Does he crave peace?

Why should I fight for someone who doesn't want me? Why should I keep on running a 400m track when someone has already claimed the top positions?

Well maybe because people who start a race, also finish it, because they are contenders, replies my subconscious.

Well, my dear subconscious—I don't want to be a contender anymore. The race is finished. Pearl has already won.

I must be mad, talking to my subconscious.

I go to my dark brown wooden dresser and pull out my undergarments from the top drawer. Just randomly grabbing whatever came to my hand, I wore the cotton panties because I like to sleep in cotton underpants. I don't wear silk unless it's for some special occasion. I grab a white tee and black booty shorts and put them on. I hate sleeping in a bra so I don't bother wearing one. I know my nipples are erect right now and Elliot is probably going to see them but I just don't care.

He saw it all last night, any way he wanted, right? That's what he said! I'm so pissed off by his lies that I feel every word that he said to me reverberate inside my brain as I now recall them in a disgusting joke kind of way rather than fond memories.

I remove the towel that was draped on my head and pick up the dirty clothes from the floor and throw them into my tub of dirty laundry. I blow dry my hair just enough that they aren't dripping wet.

I climb down the stairs and I see him sitting on a couch swiping at his phone. He's probably looking at the pictures that he and Pearl have together!

I can't help but stop such thoughts from crossing my head. I hate myself for it. It shouldn't matter to me, but it does. It does. It does. It does.

"Charlotte," he whispers as he acknowledges me.

"Oh don't stop looking at your phone at my account. Please."

"Oh! I was just randomly doing shit, you know to pass the time," he answers.

"Why are you still here?" I ask him as I lean against the railing of the staircase.

"We should talk," he says. My heart hammers against my chest. I am scared of confrontation. It freaks me out because I don't know how I will react.

I don't want to face this. I can wallow in my bitterness but I can't confront anybody. The anxiety kills me. If we do this, I'm scared I might have a panic attack.

"Elliot, I get that you're back with your ex. I will accept that. We spent a good time together, I'll hold onto the good memories. Let it be what it was. No need to name it," I speak.

The words  that I said, I don't know how was I able to squeeze them out of me. I could hear it in my tone how hard it was for my conscience to allow me to say that.

But this is the kind of person that I am. In the heat of the moment, I behave differently but when I am calm, I run for my survival. 

I ruin things when I'm mad and I save myself when I am calm. I am Hulk.

"Charlotte, I...," he tries to say something but I can see through him. He knows what I said was true and he doesn't have it in him to admit it in front of me and hurt me. 

"Say it, Elliot. There's nothing you could say that would hurt me anymore. You can't break what's already broken," I tell him as I cross my arms. I am so dead and dry from within that I don't even have a tear in my eye. On the contrary, he has tears in his eyes. His eyes are wet like they were in the car.

He could be feeling like crap honestly, but I genuinely don't care. He's not my business anymore. Pearl is there to dry his tears now. 

"I didn't want to do this Charlotte. But she..she said all those things and she apologised again and again and she promised that it would never happen again. And I'm supposed to be getting married to her! We had a bond! I cheated on her and that guilt was eating me inside and today when she said that we had both hurt each other and we should forgive each other together, I felt like maybe I was giving up on her! I'm not someone who gives up on his word, Charlotte," his tone was angry, confused, and loud. His eyes were wild and his hands were grasping at his hair, pulling them like that was helping him make a point to himself.

His word to her! What about the many words that he gave to me!

"Throughout all of that, you didn't remember, even for a second, the word that you should've kept for me," I paused as he took in my words. Surprise latched onto his face and I could detect a subtle hint of shame.

I walked closer to him, "you didn't stop for a second to think of me Elliot and that tells me clearly how much I mean to you," I say hiding my pain behind sarcasm.

I feel like a half-thrown sandwich at the bottom of a public bin. He took a part of me, swallowed it, made himself complete with it, and when he found a delicacy to eat, threw the leftovers of me away.

"That's not true...," he starts to lie.

"At least admit the truth, damnit," I start getting angry now.

He isn't owning up to the fact that he did something wrong.

He sat on the couch and exhaled a huge sigh as he hid his face behind his hands.

"So what's your plan the next time she beats you?" I ask him.

"Please! If you can't be happy for me, at least don't put such things in my head. You don't have to like her, but please don't say bad things about her," the way he stands up for her makes my mouth drop.

What the...

Has he forgotten the fact that she hit him! Multiple times!

I didn't expect him to change this drastically and so soon.

"Elliot! Are you nuts? Am I saying bad things about her? She fucking hit you! Like actually physically abused you for fucks sake! I don't need to make her bad, she is bad!" I can't believe how obnoxiously dumb he is being.

Did she give him an injection of stupidity? How has he turned into an imbecile all of a sudden?

He closed his eyes like it was me who was hurting him!

"We made promises to each other, I won't cheat on her and she won't do...any of that ...to me again," he opened his eyes to look at me.

I sit down on the floor, on my knees in front of him as I place my hands on his knees and look into his eyes. I try to look for something, some rare comet-like fleeting emotion that all of this is false, that he doesn't mean it, that isn't real but all I find is constancy.

This is really happening.

She has managed to fool him.

That narcissistic bitch of a woman has trapped him in her lies and he isn't thinking with his brain. A perfect combination of disaster.

"Look, Charlotte, I know I might have taken advantage of our situation but it was never about sex. I felt things for you and you took care for me. You were there for me when nobody was. Not even she and for that reason, I am going to be indebted to you forever. But the maximum that I can be for you is a friend who you can call anytime whenever you're in a problem. I'll be your forever friend," he says, getting emotional towards the end.

I choke on my breath and turn away from him, removing my hands from his knees in the process. I sit on the floor cross-legged as I pull on the neck of my tee and put it in my mouth to chew on it to stop myself from crying. I start to shake so badly. I keep the cloth stuffed in my mouth as I cry. I let it all out. I can't contain it anymore.

Elliot doesn't say anything but I feel his hand on my back, rubbing circles on my shoulder blades.

This is his attempt at trying to calm me?

With tears streaming down my face, I get up from the floor and walk towards the door. I open the door and stand in front of it with my head facing the floor.

"Get out," I barely whisper out.

He stands up and walks slowly. I don't turn my face to look at him. I don't want to.

When he is right in front of me, he pulls my face up. I resist, trying to turn away but he forces me to look up at him.
I see regret in his eyes but it's not enough for me.

"I will never forget this, Elliot," I let him know.

"I know but I hope you move on," he tells me.

"I won't," I answered honestly.

He closes his eyes.

"This is going to sound bullshit to you but she will hurt you, Elliot. And this time, you would have to be the luckiest guy on the fucking planet to get away from her," I start to take slow steps towards him.

"And when you're hurt and on the verge of losing everything, then I will come to you and ask you to move on and then you let me know what your answer will be," I breathe the last words against his lips. My lips are close to him. My face so close to him that I can feel his breath on me. He gives me a condescending look. His bitter and my angry eyes did nothing good for the situation.

He wanted me to forget our time together and accept the situation as it was and I wanted him to fuck the situation and remember the time he spent with me.

But sadly, I could see it in his eyes none was achievable. I'm pretty sure my eyes were speaking the same language as him.

An epic past is hard to forget and it hurts again and again like that bullet which was left inside after you got shot to remind you how it all began.

"I can't believe that you wished so bad for me. I was genuinely hoping you would be happy for me," he said clear hurt shone on his face.

I look unbelievably at him.

"I will never be happy for you as long as you're with her," I spew the venom of my lifetime at him.

Gosh! This is all so wrong.

This isn't you Charlotte!

"Thanks for being so honest," he looked at me with disgust in his eyes, and pure hatred was reflected on his face.

"Thanks for not holding back, like at all," he spat at me.

"I thought you let the people you love go," he said in a way that told me he'd given up trying to wake up the kindness from within me.

"Well, then it's good that I never loved you," after I say that I know what a grave mistake I've made.

As soon as the words leave my mouth, he closes his mouth shut, looks at me like I had slapped him in the face. The doom registered in his brain and he gave a curt nod, and left.

He turns around, "your car has been parked outside. Keys have been handed to your guard. You can take them from him," he tells me and gets inside his car and drives away.

Right when I shut the door and embrace the silence around me, I realise that I missed an opportunity.

Shit! How could I have missed it?

"I thought you let the people you love go," he said, trying to wake up the kindness from within me.

"Well, then it's good that I never loved you,"

I recall the words that he said. But in a moment of anger I was so busy  instigating him to fight me that I ignored a detail which will now haunt me forever because of unsurity.

I never asked him what he meant by that. Throughout the days that we were together, we had never said those three words to each other. It was never love.

Did he say that by mistake or was it...

Did he indirectly tell me he loved me right when he was leaving me?

Or am I making a mistake?

But coming down to reality, does it even matter what he felt?

He is marrying her and there is nothing that I can do about it.

***
Author's note
Hi guys
I literally finished typing this chapter and uploaded it as soon as I was done with it.
Do tell me, what you think about this one.
Is Elliot correct in staying with Pearl?
Do you believe Pearl won't start the same shit again?
Do you think Pearl is guilt trapping him?
At last, how do you think Charlotte handled this situation?
Was she too brutal?
Could she have handled it better?
Luv, Leena ❤

Bye-bye, until next time.