He cups my face in his big hands, brushing away my hair with his long fingers. He’s shaking even more than before. My heart is beating so loudly that I feel it in my temples, in my neck and even behind my eyes. But all I see is Duke, so close to me and yet now so far away—way too far to reach him. “I know it in my heart. I’ve never felt like I do when I look in your eyes, when I touch you, when I hold you and when I make love to you.” He traces my lower lip with his thumb, and I shiver, fighting against myself to not close my eyes under the assault of the sensations he’s creating inside of me with a simple touch. “Juliet was my first love, but I was wrong. You are my eternity.’’
I smile sadly and bring a hand to the necklace resting around his neck under his tee-shirt. The eternity symbol necklace he gave Juliet, the same one he always wears, weighing between us, weighing on my heart and giving more space for my doubts.
“No, I’m not.”
“Listen to me,” he says urgently, his fingers delving in my wild hair, tugging to force me to look back in his eyes. “You. Are. My. Eternity.” He takes a deep breath like he’s trying to imprint my scent in his memory. “You’re the love of my life; the kind you only feel once.”
I bring my shaking hands to his thick wrists and push away his hands. He’s resists, but not for long when he sees the seriousness in my now tear-soaked face. I’m shaking my head from left to right without stopping.
“Take the job in San Francisco.”
A heartbreaking sob escapes him, and I run away. I can’t see him, the strong, tall, dark and handsome Duke, breaking like that, not after his words. I’m running, my feet pounding on the concrete ground. The trees and people are just a blur around me. My heavy breathing is drowning out all the sounds around me, and all I’m thinking about is how can I live now that I ended the best thing in my life after hearing his declaration of love?
He told me the thing that I only dreamt he would about Juliet, making all my fears and doubts disappear about his past relationship with her and what he still felt and now it doesn’t even mean anything.
Suddenly, I stop and grab my phone from my pants pocket. If he loves me so much, he’s bound to do something ridiculous to ruin his life. Fear claws at me, and I type a quick text even if I’m blind from my tears.
Me: Take care of him. Please.
I hit send and pray that Derek will be enough.
***
DUKE
It’s over.
I bend at the waist, no more air going in my lungs, just as if someone had punched me in the stomach. I can still feel her tears and warmth on my hands, the softness of her hair on my fingers. I can still smell her sweet scent, and with my eyes closed, I can still see her haunted eyes and the determination there.
I put my palms on the closest desk and lean on it with all my weight, unable to even try to stand straight and tall. Nothing is functioning, moveover everything inside of me is painful. It’s the same pain I felt when Juliet died.
Another sob leaves me, tearing itself out of my gut.
“It’s … over.’’ My voice is barely recognizable. It’s distorted with pain with the sobs crushing me, pushing me down once again.
I feel my cell phone buzz in my pocket, but I don’t move to retrieve it. I don’t give a fuck, don’t give a flying fuck who it is or who might get worried.
I’ve lost my heart, and this time I don’t even want it back. I want it to stay with her, with Skye.
I try to take a deep breath, but nothing is working. Now I’m ready to puke. Growling and punching the top of the desk, again and again relentlessly, I overturn it. But even as my blurry eyes land on the broken desk, nothing inside of me is numb, nothing is hurting any less. Nothing.
I don’t try to dry my face as my tears fall, not even feel them at this point. The pain where my heart is supposed to be is overruling everything else.
I won’t have her in my arms again, won’t comfort her, won’t make love to her, and won’t see the love for me in her beautiful eyes. I won’t feel her lips on mine, kissing me with the same intensity as I did, pouring out everything she feels. All of this, it’s over.
It’s over.
Chapter Ten
SKYE
The door opens and Kate walks inside, her high heels marking the count of her steps as she comes near my bed where I’m sprawled, trying to stop the tears from falling. It’s a useless battle, but that’s all I’m able to do right now, hours after I broke up with Duke and left him alone in a big empty classroom.
“I didn’t think you’d really break up with him.”
She sits next to me and puts a soft hand on my knee. I glance at her and see sad eyes looking back. I dry my face with shaking hands and shrug. Not daring to use my voice, I’m sure it would break at the first word.
Kate nibbles on her upper lip, her tongue moistening it. I know what it means when she does this. She wants to tell me something, but doesn’t know how to do so. My heartbeats increase as I force my lungs to take in the air softly. I have to stay calm and in control. I made a decision, and I have to live with it now?
“Hmm …” Kate brushes away the wrinkles of her peach colored dress and sighs. “There’s a problem with Duke.”
I sit up abruptly, almost toppling her off the edge of the bed. She grips the comforter on my bed and her eyebrows shoot up. My nails dig in the sheets of my bed as I feel my eyes widening despite my efforts to not panic.
“What’s going on? Is he all right?” I strangle out the words, my throat closing and my stomach doing unpleasant cartwheels.
“Derek and his roommate are with him, but he’s not good. He … he is drunk out of his mind. Derek told me that he can barely sit up straight.”
I search for my phone in my pocket, missing twice because of my shaking hands, and I finally scroll down my contacts. “He should get him to the hospital if it’s that bad.”
Kate grabs my phone before I can dial Derek’s number and keeps it in her lap, her hands tight around it. I want to wrestle it back, but I won’t. After all, what would be the use of calling Derek? It’s not like I can say something over the phone that he doesn’t already know. Moreover, Derek knows this side of Duke better than I do.
“Duke doesn’t want to. He tried to punch Derek.” She shakes her head and closes her eyes. “He’s crying.”
New tears fall down my face as I picture Duke in a mess just because of me, because I stomped on his heart. He’s put all his feelings for me out there, and that’s when I decide to break up with him. Men less broken would be a mess too.
“He’ll be better soon.”
I tug on my sleeves and Kate reaches for one of my hands. Her skin is soft, but her grip is strong. As I look up at her face, I see a determination I know I’m going to hate. Doesn’t she realize that I’m in no better shape than Duke is right now? It’s not because I’m not drinking that I feel better. If someone could see the darkness in my mind, the pitch black ideas turning round and round, they would be frightened. I don’t feel like fighting anymore. I don’t feel like making any kind of effort right now. I feel like maybe, just maybe, Sean should have killed me back then. It’s irrational and ridiculous because it would have been so much harder for everybody, but that’s how I feel.
“I think you should go and see him. Talk with him to calm him down just a little bit.”
I stand up, shaking my head. I can’t do that. I can’t see him when he’s like this. “It’s not an option.”
She frowns and faces me, standing very straight, not wanting to lose inches on me with her short body. “Stop that, Skye.” She points at me, her green eyes as cold as ice. “That guy is suffering because of you, and he deserves some peace. He helped you and loves you, so the least you can do is to go to his place and calm him enough to go to sleep. He’s so drunk that he won’t even remember tomorrow.”
“You don’t understand … I don’t want to see him like this.”
“You have to face the consequences.”
I no
d, tears still falling and dampening my sweater. I put on my shoes, grab my keys and leave without another word. Kate is right. I have to do something, but what?
*
SKYE
Derek opens the door and his eyes widen as he takes me in. Behind him I can hear Grayson talking to Duke, but I can’t hear his words or Duke’s answer. I smell the tobacco, stale alcohol and something invisible … despair.
“Kate convinced you to come,” he says, his voice not judging, but there is an audible disappointment.
I nod and look down the hall where some people are looking at us with curiosity. They know there’s something going on, but they don’t know what. I hate the idea of other people, unknown ones, being witnesses to this gigantic mess. But that’s life on campus.
“I don’t even know what to do or say.”
He reaches for me and leads me inside the little room. It’s never been a very tidy room, but it was never like this. Countless bottles, most of which are empty, scattered on the floor. Ashes from cigarettes are on both desks, the floor and Duke’s bed. And Duke is only wearing his underwear, his skin sweaty under the soft glow of the bedside lamp. He’s facing the wall, his shoulders shaking slightly from silent sobs.
I’m disconnected. I don’t know what to think or say, and I’m standing in the middle of the little room, not feeling my body or Derek’s hand on my left shoulder. I’m just staring.
“We’ll leave you two alone.”
I turn around toward the two guys ready to bolt. I grab Derek’s forearm, but he smiles at me. It doesn’t reach his eyes, but it’s easing me a little.
Grayson points at the door. “We’ll be outside the door. If he tries to stand up or tries to drink, call us,” he says before shaking his head. He looks like he’s not a fan of me right now. I can’t blame him. He doesn’t really know me, and what he’s seeing at the moment is not in my favor.
I sidestep his clothes at the foot of his bed, reeking of puke, and I sit on the tiny twin bed, the same one we had sex in the first time together. I grit my teeth, barely raining in the sob tearing at me from the inside. I bring a hand to Duke’s feverish skin and shake his shoulder a little.
He turns his head, his dark eyes bloodshot and haunted, so much more than how they were in the classroom. It takes him several seconds before he recognizes me, or maybe it takes him so long to believe it’s really me in his room on his bed.
He turns on his back and brings a shaking hand to my face, bumping into my chin in the process. The smell of alcohol coming from him is nauseating. His big hand feels clumsy for the first time since I’ve met him, but I don’t push him away. I see in his eyes that he needs to touch me, to feel me by his side, even if it’s for the last time.
“Skye …” His pleading voice is my undoing. When my tears fall on his knuckles, he freezes. “Why are you doing this to us?” he slurs, his words slapping me in the face.
“Please don’t ruin your life because of me. Stop drinking and just … live.”
“I can’t without you.” In slow motion he shakes his head. “You don’t know how much I rely on you in my life. I don’t want to do this without you.’’
“That’s not healthy, Duke,” I whisper, my hand now in his damp hair, brushing it away from his handsome face. “You’ll be fine.”
“Don’t leave me.”
I close my eyes and pull my hand away from his hair. He’s never showed so much vulnerability before, I know it’s partly because of the alcohol, but for the first time I think that maybe Alana’s warning about the fragility of her brother wasn’t just words. Maybe Duke is not as strong as he wants me to believe.
“It’s for the best.”
He pulls his hand away from my face, his face morphing into something hard, the same face I saw when he faced Sean. I brace myself because I know it’s going to hurt. I’m the same. When I’m blinded by my pain, I use anger to just breathe because I feel like I’m dying from the inside. Only anger seems to be the cure to survive for one minute or second longer.
“Leave and never come back then! You ruined me all over again. I don’t want to ever see you,’’ he yells at my face so loudly that Grayson followed by Derek run inside.
I nod, stand up and leave without looking back at anyone. Anger is better than being self-destructive, but I never thought it would end with him hating me like this. I never thought he’d hate me.
I don’t walk to my dorm immediately. Instead, I’m walking on the campus in the night, not caring one bit if some perv can pounce on me while I’m unarmed. I don’t even see where I’m going, who I’m crossing the path of. I just walk, feeling empty all over again.
His angry words dug a deep whole in my heart, taking back the love he once gave me without expecting anything of me.
***
DUKE
Glancing at Derek’s sleeping form on the floor next to my bed and at Grayson on his bed, my mouth feels awful. I’ve got a motherfucker of a hangover, but it’s nothing compared to that never ending pain in my chest. Even when I was beyond plastered, it didn’t ease up. Alcohol isn’t helping, and I truly thought it would give me a little peace, that it would numb everything. But no, it didn’t.
I look back to the ceiling and let the dizziness play with my nerves, making my stomach roll some more. I know if I move too much I’m going to puke again, so I stay put.
There are no tears in my eyes anymore and no sobs wracking me from the inside. Somehow, the pain and emptiness are worse.
But she came. I vaguely remember her being here earlier. She came when she heard how out of my mind I was. It must mean something.
I silently snort. As if it’d change anything. She came because we both know that even though she’s breaking up with me, she’s still as much in love with me as she was before. That’s even more tragic.
I shouldn’t have asked for a break. I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly when I discovered her lie. I shouldn’t have pushed her away. I handled everything wrong and now …
Fuck everything. Fuck my heart, fuck my tears and fuck my life. All that shit about feelings, love and happiness isn’t for me. I shouldn’t have let her into my heart if it’s to end like this.
This heart break is worse than dying because at least when you’re dead it’s over. Right now, I feel dead, but I’m very much alive, feeling all this fucking pain eating at me.
*
SKYE
In the middle of the night, I wake up with a start, breathing loudly in our tiny dorm room only lit by the moon outside. I bring both hands to my throat and brush away my hair tickling me viciously, accentuating the feeling of a ghostly touch. I close my mouth shut and grit my teeth, afraid to whimper with the fear of my nightmare still freezing me on the spot in my twin bed.
Once again I dreamed about what happened with Sean, but this time it went on and on. Duke never came to my rescue. He never helped me, never saved me, and I had a nightmare about what would have happened without him. I can still hear Sean’s words, the ones he could have told me if the situation had been different.
“You’re alone. Even your tattooed dude can do nothing. You’re alone because you deserve nobody and nothing, but this. Nobody loves you.”
I dart my eyes to Kate’s bed where she’s snoring lightly with her head pressed to her pillow, and I try to match my breathing to hers, so deep and calm. It’s like my lungs are burning me from the inside, making the breathing process all the more unbearable. I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but my mouth is dry. My mouth is parched, my tongue weighing behind my teeth which are biting my lower lip harder and harder as I feel an intense panic growing from my belly.
I bring my right hand to my hair and tug, trying to relieve this pressure inside of me, this helpless feeling; nothing is working. It’s worse than the night before when I went back to the dorms after my last confrontation with Duke. I had the same kind of nightmare, but I succeeded in calming down. This time I can’t.
The more seconds that are ticking
by, the more I have the feeling of not just hyperventilating but suffocating. My breathing gets louder, whistling high pitched in the dark, and Kate stirs.
“Skye?”
I can’t even mutter a word. Nothing is coming out of my mouth besides this weird sound, the same kind someone with an asthma attack makes. She stands up and runs to my side, brushing my sticking hair away from my forehead before she turns on my lamp. She’s very pale, and her eyes are shining with unshed tears. Her fear for me is not easing my panic attack.
“Calm down. It’s going to be all right,” she says, trying to use her most soothing voice without any effect. I can barely hear her words through the buzz in my ears.
I shake my head and sit up. I bring my legs to my chest and put my forehead against my knees. I have to calm down. I have to calm down and just think about nothing.
“Do you want me to call Duke?”
I look up at her and shake my head again. Of course I want him because he’s the only one able to soothe me when I’m having a panic attack, but it’s not an option anymore. He needs space, and he told me that he doesn’t want to see me again.
“Derek then?”
I purse my lips and nod softly, my breathing still hard, fast and loud. Dark dots are invading my vision. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay conscious if my breathing doesn’t return to normal soon.
I push away my sheets, but I keep my legs against my torso with my arms embracing them tightly, my short nails clawing at my bare thighs. Kate stands up, walks back to her bedside table, grabs her phone and dials Derek’s number, her eyes going back and forth from me and to her cell.
“I know it’s late, but Skye is having a really bad panic attack.” She turns around for a few seconds, listening to what Derek is telling her, and my panic increases even more. My heart beats so fast and loud that it’s painful in my chest. “I don’t know, but can’t you come? I don’t know what to do, and she’s barely breathing.” She nods like he can see her and hangs up without saying another word.
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