Young Writers Society

“So, what now?”

We were arguing again. I don't think I even remember what it was about now. My family. His. Ours. It didn't matter. These days we always found something to fight about.

“Whaddya mean, what now?” I asked.

“What do we do now Tris? Where do we go from here?”

Where did we go from here?

“I dunno. You tell me.”

He exploded, and I wished that I hadn't said anything.

“Damn it, girl! I've been trying to tell you for months, years about how I feel about you, but you just won't listen!”

“I would if there was anythin' ta listen to!” I shot back.

We were out by the barn. His car was parked by my paddock, and the horses and dogs were sniffing at it like always. Being a member of lower society, I couldn't afford things like that. Electricity, running water, and cars were always out of my reach.

We argued about that too.

“What do you mean by that?” he shouted, “I tell you that I love you every single day I'm with you! How is that nothing to listen to?!”

“It jus' is!” I felt childish, standing there screaming at him in nothing but my nightclothes. But then, when he had drove up into my yard it had been almost bedtime, and now it was several hours later.

We must have been a sight, the two of us, me in a nightdress and him dressed in a suit. When we first got together, he had hated the things. Now he seemed to wear them every damn day. Drove me nuts, just like all the other habits he seemed to have picked up from his family over the years.

“Is that it then? Just like that, we're done?” It took me a moment to realize that he wasn't raising his voice to me anymore. And that his tone sounded as defeated as I had felt the day that it all went to hell for us.

Apart of me wanted to scream some more, to keep on fighting with him. To let out all the hate, anger, betrayal, and other things that I had secretly been feeling over the years. But I didn't. Just like always, I bottled it up inside and didn't let anyone else see the turmoil that was going on in my head.

To be honest, as much as I wanted to fight him, I wanted to hold him more. To have him close like he used to be, with us clutching each other like we were the only two people left on earth. The only ones that mattered anyway.

I wanted to kiss him, hard and deep and without holding anything back. To explore him again and again and again, taking in the taste that I knew so well while cradling the face that I could draw in my sleep. I wanted him to want me again, like he hadn't for the past few months. And god-dammit, I wanted him to forgive me.

But I knew that he wouldn't.

If I still couldn't forgive myself, why should he?

“Just git outta here, Jeremy Turner. Git outta my yard, git offa my farm, I don't care where the hell you go, just git.”

I couldn't hurt him anymore. Every time he looked at me now, the knife cut a little deeper, and the guilt drove me a little more mad. No matter how hard I tried to be good enough for him, I always managed to screw him up one way or another.

Whether it was because his parents hated me, my parents thought that I was whoring around with him, or that society in general viewed our relationship as something wrong, it didn't matter. Either I hurt him directly or indirectly.

I was a toxic piece of trash that hurt everything I touched. But, if I had my way, he was going to be gone from my life forever, so that I couldn't hurt him anymore. And as much as that thought hurt me, I knew it had to be that way.

His face had gone white the second I had finished talking, and he looked a bit like a fish the way his eyes bugged out and his mouth kept opening and closing. I suppose if I had been him, I would have looked like that too. In all the years we had been together, through all the arguments, I had never told him to leave. In fact, they usually ended up in the opposite direction, with one of us dragging the other into my house or his (whichever was closer) and into the bedroom where we became a tangled mass of limbs.

“God,” he said, sounding so desperate that I had to look away from him, “God, Tris, tell me you don't mean that.”

I wanted so much to break, to tell him that I didn't mean it, and to love me and never let me go, but I didn't. I held firm. I looked him dead in the eye, and told him to leave and never come back.

He cried.

In all my life with him, I had only ever seen him cry once. Once. And that had been at a funeral. But now, seeing him like that, shocked me to my core. He didn't sob, didn't make a sound in fact, but just stood there staring at me with tears streaming down his face. Then without a word, he walked straight up to me, dragged me to his chest, and kissed me the way that I wanted him to.

And God, it hurt. It hurt because I knew that he was pouring everything that he had into that kiss, hoping that he could make me change my mind. I responded to the kiss with equal fervor, yanking on his collar and letting him lift me up so that I could wrap my legs around his torso. The kiss was quiet, with none of our usual moans or words. It was one of the most beautiful, passionate acts that we had ever committed together. But it had to end.

And end it did.

He broke away first, and looked deep into my eyes. Whatever he saw there cause him to deflate even more than he already had, and he set me on my feet without another word. Taking my face in his hands, he stroked my cheeks for a moment, as if he were memorizing how they felt. Then he pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, and left without a word.

I waited until he was in his car driving away before I broke down. My knees the ground with a thud that sounded as hollow as I felt, and my hands soon followed them. I pressed my face into the dirt, feeling as if I couldn't get enough air even though I was breathing. The sky opened up as the tears started to fall, and I lifted my head and watched his headlights fade into the distance as I cried.