Brielle
“Brielle,” he said. “I can’t talk to you anymore.”
Brielle looked at the cell phone, briefly and then put it back to her ear. She said nothing. She fingered the half a heart charm around her neck. It was three days until Christmas and she had been sitting on her bed wrapping gifts. She’d saved Damon’s gift for last. Outside the snow fell silently, blanketing everything in beautiful white silence.
“Brielle?” She still didn’t answer.
“Brielle, are you there?” asked Damon. His voice was harsh. He felt like a straight up punk, calling Brielle to dump her over the phone, but he thought that it might be easier not to have to face her. He didn’t think that he could get through it without crying.
“I’m here,” said Brielle, through her tight throat. “What happened?”
“I’ve got something to do and can’t talk about it right now,” said Damon. “But I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” Brielle’s voice was wobbly.
“Yeah,” he said baldly. He could feel his chest tighten.
“Would you tell me why?” asked Brielle. She felt like she was dying.
Damon was silent, trying to breathe.
“What did I do?” she asked. Brielle was being flayed alive, like he was peeling skin from her chest one layer at a time to let the tiny pieces of her heart flutter around in a discarded confetti rain.
Damon hated the begging tone in her voice. He hated the tears. It made him angry that Brielle would beg when he was the one at fault. He burned inside and felt his head pound.
You didn’t do anything,” said Damon, closing his eyes. He was so ashamed of himself, but he didn’t want to tell her about Sasha’s pregnancy, couldn’t bring himself to give her the details to make her hate him. He wanted to keep it a secret for as long as he possibly could. He didn’t want her to know yet, just how stupid he’d been.
“I got some stuff to do and it doesn’t include you,” he said. “I won’t be able to – can’t be with you anymore.”
“Can’t you at least tell me why?” asked Brielle. He could hear the tears clogging her voice.
“No,” he said. “I can’t tell you, now. And don’t beg.”
“Beg?” asked Brielle, her voice rising to a shriek on the last letter. “Beg you? You call me out of the blue and tell me you’re breaking up with me and I’m not supposed to even ask why? You asked me to be your girl, not the other way around.”
“I know,” said Damon, miserably. “It’s just, I need some space to-,”
“Oh, so now I’m crowding you?” she asked bitterly. “I’m Sasha all over again, huh?”
“Don’t talk about her,” he said, quickly and knew that it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Oh,” said Brielle, enraged. “You’re back with her now? That’s what this is about? I knew this was going to happen. I knew you were lying. I should have known. Why would you want me when you could have her? She was giving up the booty. I’ll bet she broke up with you, not the other way around.”
“It’s not like that,” said Damon. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you go sniffing around her again and she let you back in after all this time?”
“No,” said Damon. “It’s not even like that.” Brielle paused giving him the opportunity to say something. Damon remained silent.
“What is it like, Damon?” asked Brielle, giving him one last chance. He could hear the hope in her voice, the hope that maybe he’d made some mistake and she was willing to forgive him if he’d just come clean. He was silent, trying to formulate the words.
“Tell me something,” said Brielle, when he didn’t respond. He could feel her hope fall away through the telephone, flaking to her bedroom floor like sunburned skin. She took a deep shuddering breath. “Tell me that Sasha doesn’t have anything to do with you breaking up with me.”
He closed his eyes and imagined Brielle hugging him, imagined her soft lips on his. He imagined her talking to him, and laughing and looking at him with her heart in her eyes. Tears formed in his eyes. Brielle was his dream, had been before he ever realized and she was to be gone from his life in a few minutes forever. And he had nobody to blame but himself. He closed his eyes. Damon waited an eternal second before he shattered his dreams into a thousand jagged shards of glass.
“Damon?” prompted Brielle.
“I can’t,” said Damon, and snapped his cell phone closed.
Brielle
Dumped! She had just been officially, cruelly, unequivocally, dumped. Brielle sat looking at her cell phone, stunned. Her first instinct was to call Damon back and try to find out what she could do to get him back. To force him to tell her what had happened. Confusion rang in her mind as she replayed the conversation inside her head. She started to redial but she was so dazed that she couldn’t remember which number was his. She stared at the screen on the cell phone. Call terminated 6:29 p.m. Brielle pressed several buttons on her phone and scrolled down to the only number that her frozen brain could recognize. She put the receiver to her ear and listed to the distant ringing.
“Hey, what’s up?” said Sammie’s bright voice.
Brielle burst into tears.
“Oh, no,” she heard Sammie say. “Brielle? What’s wrong? What happened?” Brielle could not speak, she just sobbed inconsolably into the receiver. A few minutes later, Brielle’s door burst open.
“Hey,” said Kyzie, gently. “Sammie called the house phone, said you were crying. What happened?” Brielle just shook her head and kept crying. Brielle heard Kyzie close her door and walk across the room to where she sat on the bed. Kyzie took the cell phone out of her hand and spoke to Sammie softly, but
