I leaned over to brush a falling tear from his flushed face. I remember doing this only one other time in the four years we'd been together, and that was the first time I ripped him to shreds. I don't mean to do this, you see, I just don't let people in, I can't because letting people in gives them every chance to destroy me in every single way.
"I'm so sorry," I said to him because there wasn't anything else I could think of to say. He stared right on through me. I'd never seen him do that before. "What did I do?" I thought to myself. I know what I did, I destroyed him just like, long ago, I had been destroyed.
What gave me the right to do that? What gave me the right to ask him for his heart? After all, I could never give him mine. He loved me with all that he had, and I tore him down. He took care of me, he gave me all that I needed and more, so why couldn't I just let him in? "You're so stupid!" I yelled at myself quietly, "Don't you see him? Aren't you looking at him? Can't you tell how you've broken him?" Yes, of course I could see that! So what was I doing? I had no idea.
"Why?" he asked, "What did I do?"
I shook my head. He had done absolutely nothing wrong. He was perfect in every way a human on Earth could be perfect.
I wanted to hold him and let him cry everything out. I wanted to hold him and tell him he'd be all right without me, but I knew that wasn't right. It wasn't right to hurt him as much as I had already.
I think that's why I needed to let him go. He deserved so much better than me. He deserved to have someone who respected him, who could love him more and better than I could. Oh, but how badly I wanted to be that girl.
"Damn you, Dad!" I snarled under my breath. He was the one who had given me every reason in the world not to trust anyone, and I hated him for it, but I could hardly blame him for this. No, this was my fault.
I reached out to touch his face again; this time he jerked away. Could I blame him? It hurt me, true, but what he was feeling was much worse.
I walked to my car and opened the door slowly. Maybe I was hoping that he would walk over and convince me not to go, but he didn't, so I sat down and shut the door. I twisted the key in the ignition and slammed gear shift into drive. I looked in my rear-view mirror. He was just staring out against the sky. He looked lost, and I'm sure he was.
"You put that car into park, and you go back to him right now," my heart told me, "he's the best thing you've ever had going for you." My mind wouldn't let me. It knew better; it knew he was better off.
I drove out of his driveway, probably for the last time. I tried to control my flowing emotions while I drove, but as soon as I was on the road back home, I slammed on the brakes, pulled over, opened my door, and vomited. Who was this girl? Who was this person who could rip a human soul in half as I had just done?
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