In a pitch-black night, a lone car drives along dimly lit streets. The night of a new moon means the only light filtering through the car windows are the subdued glows of passing streetlights or the occasional lit shopfront; It's dark enough that you can only make out shapes in the car, and for once, Elisabeth is glad she can't see his face, because she doesn't think she can stand to look at him right now.
He'd turned off the music long ago, but the song continues to play in her head anyways. It was some upbeat, mainstream pop song, and the lyrics, a muddled mess of words she can't recall, blend into his own scathing script to create a dissonant din. Her gaze remains sternly unfocused on the passing scenery, hearing-not-listening to his tirade of jabs and admonishments yet taking the punch dealt with every word anyways. Everything she's said so far has fallen on deaf ears, because he's so committed to his stupid little narrative to even care about what she has to say.
It bursts out before she even knows it.
"You're so... selfish! You were with her and, like, you— you do this all the time and now you're—"
He scoffs, a loud sound that cuts sharply through her words and makes her flinch. "Oh, yeah, because I'm the selfish one when you called me at three in the goddamn morning for me to pick you up while you were drunk out of your mind all over some other guys—"
I hate him I hate him I hate him.
"I wasn't— How many times do I have to tell you that I didn't even know they were coming?"
The familiar warmth settling behind her eyes does not bode well, and Elisabeth bites down on her lip, her eyes squeezing shut in a futile attempt to clear the tears that threatened to spill.
I hate seeing you cry.
Her next words come out scornful yet resigned,
"Why can't you ever trust me?"
An ominous pause, and then words that make her wish she was dead.
"You don't make yourself trustworthy, that's why."
Her eyes fly open, her tears begin to fall, and she stares at him, speechless; The faint outline of his features reflect a cold rage she's committed to memory.
How many times had they had this fight? It was always like this—
her heart panged painfully, once, twice
— and she was so bitter and he was so resentful and it was so tiring and they were so fucking tired—
her hand balled into a fist, nails digging into her palm
— and she hated him and he must hate her so much more—
He was so tired. It was almost 4am and his throat was sore and he felt like he'd been driving forever. The road ahead stretched endlessly on, even as it melted into the heavy darkness, merciless. He barely realized what he'd just said but he knew it'd been harsh, because the chilled air was hard to swallow and his heart felt like it was collapsing onto itself under that familiar weight of guilt. She had gone quiet; that never bode well.
He was so tired. He almost always was, lately. And as frustration and indignity seeped out of his cracks, through his words that tasted like poison, the hollow space they left allowed questions to flood his head again.
Was he wrong to be upset? He wasn't. He wasn't. He had dragged himself out of the house at a ridiculous time in the morning to pick her up, just to see her drunk and hanging around men he didn't recognize — that even she didn't recognize. He was justified. Surely.
But she said she hadn't known. And he believed her. He believed her, but he was so annoyed that she'd ended up in that situation at all, not thinking of circumstance or consequence or anything. She never did. And he was offended, too. That even in this situation, she dared to call him — him — the selfish one. Had she thought of him at all tonight, until the moment came when she needed him?
Did she ever think of him? What was he, truly, to her? What was going through her head? Why didn't he know? Because, even now, though anger tried its very best to numb him, remorse was choking him at the sight of her trembling shoulders. But did she feel even remotely the same? Does she know that she hurt him? Would she even care?
He did this every single time, and he hated it. He hated that he had all these doubts. He hated being this irrational, this vulnerable, this messy. He hated when she cared too much and hated when she cared too little. He hated that she never changed and that he always believed she would.
He hated that he still wanted to hug her and tell her to forget about it all and that he was so, so sorry for what he said because he never meant to make her cry.
He hated her.
A sharp breath; it shatters the seal of silence and his web of thoughts. Almost right on time, almost as if she had heard the cruel whispers of his mind. Her words were building in the air. His grip on the steering wheel tightened.
"Pull over."
— In the moment, it felt like a conclusion. A judgement. He waited, but no laugh of disbelief bubbled up. No energy to fight, no questions about what or why or how. I'm not letting you go, he could've said. But did he have the right?
The car pulled to a slow stop along the pitch black road, streetlights glimmering in the background like the pulsing hints of a different world. The door was swung open, and the space beside him turned cold. Empty. He didn't dare to look, but he made himself turn anyway. And there she was, a figure blurred by the shadows, distant.
"Beth,"
he managed to call, voice shaking, just enough to hear. Just apologize, he begged himself. Ask her to stay. But the words don't form well enough, and all that leaves his lips is a pained sigh. The only reply is the sound of her heels clicking against the concrete road.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. She didn't mean to do all the things she did and kept doing
so for god's sake, if you love me, don't pull over
. Her breath hitches in her throat as she waits for a protest that never comes. The car rolls to a slow stop, and the road is paved for her. Perhaps it is bitterness that drives her to alight, or maybe it is something closer to shame.
Regardless, she exits, the night's breath a frigid reminder of her punishment. She is surely not dressed to walk home, but returning to the car is as good as admitting defeat, and she is tired of losing. Her gaze lingers on the window, willing— begging him to turn. But he doesn't, because he never does, and she begins to move, steps unsteady and legs threatening to give way at any moment.
"Beth."
She stops. Her resolve wavers at the tremble in his voice, tinged with vulnerability, but her refusal to look back at him is her final stand, even as her mind caves. Somewhere in her mind, she says it will be his last chance— her last chance— to say anything.
I didn't mean it. I love you. Don't leave.
The rest of his words never come, and her feet move before she has time to regret or reconsider. Mindlessly, because numbing her emotions is her only remaining option. It feels like an eternity before she hears the slow rumble of the car driving off, and she makes it just a few metres more before she drops to her knees, a muddle of sobs and whines and smeared eyeliner. Somewhere in her mind, she imagines the sound of the car returning, and how warm his embrace must feel and has always felt. A blissful fantasy that echoes in the silence that surrounds her.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
She lets out a pained cry, screamed into the vast darkness and swallowed immediately by the black that paints the night sky. Cartharsis feels like anything but— She craves for the company of another, to hear her sorrows and tell her she is not being a fool for breaking her own heart, but her legs stay, unmoving and unwilling to hold up the weight of her grief. The 'sorry' that seemed so impossible to say then spills so easily from her lips now, a constant in the string of stanzas wailed to the indifferent flickers of stars above;
A poem of dying butterflies still desperately fluttering.
She chokes it out between sobs; A quiet, aching plea.
"I miss you."
Beth doesn't know how much time has passed before she finally clambers to her feet again, her fingers numb from the cold, stumbling through the sleeping city till a flash of light draws her in like a moth to the flame— An empty, almost-closed fast food restaurant, with but a lone staff member on closing duty.
Are you okay?
It is the result of the cashier's kindness that she makes it home that night; An address mumbled lethargically between fits of frenzy, and the low, persistent buzz of her phone as she dozes off in the backseat.
And at five forty-five in the morning, she is helped into the apartment; The door is opened by her half-asleep roommate that has long since learnt not to ask questions when they find her in this state. They bring her to her bedroom, a cosy but foreign space to the girl who obsessed over sharing a space with her boyfriend.
Get some rest.
She doesn't feel like she can rest. The tears threatened to well up the moment the door clicked shut, but it is catching sight of the mirror propped up on her desk that proves the final straw. In her reflection is someone both unrecognisable and familiar, who looks a mess and is a mess, who embodies every part she despises about herself. No, she cannot rest, so her hand reaches for pen and paper, and in a lilting scrawl, she spills every one of her swirling emotions in a thick, black ink the same shade as the night sky.
The butterflies writhe and fall, wilted wings marking the grave of everything they were.
Catharsis comes in a crashing wave with the final dot on the page, and she falls back, exhausted. An unsteady climb into her bed, her heart still aching, but with no more tears to show for it. Just as well— she was done crying.
It is not lifeless sorrow that lulls her to sleep that night, but a sharp bitterness that cuts like a knife; Severing.
