He looks away from me with a slight shake of his head, throwing back the rest of his drink before he drops it on the side table. He leans forward to rest his arms on his knees and I watch as he runs his hands over his face. Stepping out of my shoes, I drop to my knees in front of him, silently begging him to look at my face as he keeps his eyes on the floor.
I’ve never been in this position. I’ve never been the one feeling like I needed forgiveness. It feels worse than my heartbreak ever did. Vile and wrong; spilling like ink over everything good, and making it a dark splotchy mess that’s impossible to clean, staining my fingers as I try to scrub it away. My heart is torn in two, warring inside my chest over feelings I have no right to feel.
“Jessie kissed me.” His eyes finally rise to my face. They’re red etched with a slash of hate that almost stops me from saying more. It brands across my heart as a permanent scar, an everlasting reminder that I’m the one ruining things this time. I should tell him that I didn’t want Jessie to kiss me, that I felt nothing and regret letting it happen. But I don’t. I wanted that kiss just as badly as he did. I didn’t even want him to stop, and if Beverly hadn’t called, I’m positive I wouldn’t have because in that moment he was all I could think about. All my stupid little heart wanted. “And I let him, I wanted him to.”
The disappointment on his face hurts worse than if he had started yelling. The way he watches my tears but doesn’t touch me. For once they aren’t even because of him and yet that’s somehow worse. “Then why are you here?”
“I…” My mouth opens and closes. That sharp ache that never fully left my chest spreading to squeeze my throat in an iron grip, making it impossible to keep my lip from trembling. “I love you.”
He gets up, pushing past my kneeling form as soon as the words are out of my mouth, “If that’s true, this wouldn’t have happened.”
I stand, wiping the tears from my cheeks, the black of my mascara smeared across my palms. “That’s unfair.”
“Fucking how, Delaney? It’s unfair of you to go behind my back with your fucking pup and then expect me not to question how you feel for me.”
His words are true, but also wrong and extremely hypocritical. “You’re right, but isn’t that exactly what you expected of me for so fucking long? I’ve spent ninety percent of our entire relationship thinking I wasn’t good enough for you, that you were seeing people behind my back and lying about it.” Lifting the wet fabric of my shirt over my head, I use it to wipe my eyes, dropping it onto the floor. “Even now you have women in your phone. I’m expected to believe you when you say that you never talk to them. Why the fuck are they still in there? Why can’t you just delete their numbers then?”
He rips his phone from his pocket, tossing it onto the floor at my feet and I watch it skid across the hardwood. “Delete them, read my messages, call every number. I don’t fucking care because I am faithful like I’ve always been.” I don’t pick it up, instead drag my eyes from its spot on the floor to his angry gaze. “I know I fucked up. I can’t ever apologize enough for what I put you through, but fuck if I haven’t been trying. Tell me I haven’t Delaney. Tell me I haven’t been exactly what you’ve wanted me to be since we got back together.”
He’s yelling at me and it burns my ears, spurring on my own anger to match his. “Months of finally being a fucking decent human being doesn’t erase the damage you caused Donatello. I believe you’re sorry. I want to believe you have always been faithful, but all I feel is insecure with you. I’m constantly doubting myself and this relationship. Worrying about you suddenly deciding I’m not what you want, questioning everything I do and everything you do. You made me this way. You broke my trust so many times that I am irreparably damaged.” I swallow hard, a shuddering breath forcing me to stop my barrage of pain. “I love you. I have always loved you. I will never not love you. But I can’t love that shit away no matter how hard I try.”
His palm scrapes across his lips harshly, like he’s trying to get the taste of my words out of his mouth, and I notice he’s not wearing his rings. The dark white and purple scars that litter his knuckles and fingers bright on his tan skin. “What am I supposed to do about it now? You’re using the past as an excuse to do whatever the fuck you want, and I’m just supposed to be fine with it? What do you want, Vita Mia?” His sentence ends on a deflated sigh, his hurt bleeding into every word.
“I don’t know.” It feels almost like a lie to say it, sounding harsh coming out of my mouth. I want what I can’t have, so there’s no point in saying it. I can never have both Jessie and Donatello at the same time. It’s not plausible or reasonable to ask
