She waited in the bathroom, impatiently tapping one heel against the tiles. Her patience was running thin, all her emotions ready to spill out the moment he walked through that day. If he walked through that day. She felt silly, suddenly, standing in this cold bathroom all alone, waiting for someone who probably wasn’t even going to show. He doesn’t want her anymore—why would he? There’s no purpose she longer serves in his life. She’s been replaced by someone smarter and prettier and better. Ophelia is just the leftover slice from a life past lived. Her lower lip trembles as she thinks about it, she casts her eyes downwards at the floor, counting how many tiles there are.
Her eyes snap up at the sound of the door opening, lips curling into an angry frown. He looks as hurt as she feels. Good. She thinks. I want him to suffer. He got off scot-free when he broke her heart, carelessly smashing it underneath the pad of his fingers and walking away unscathed while she sat at home and cried to no-one, wondering what it was that she had done wrong to cause him to leave.
Then he starts to talk and she really wishes she had just left it be. That she had ignored him when she had saw him earlier, blown him off as if he was a stranger she’d never seen before. He’s breaking her heart all over again. She can feel the cracks as they start to take place, the little pangs in her heart after each word. It feels like she’s dying and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. He keeps going, relentless in his attack. Ophelia doesn’t drop her gaze, not once, she keeps firm eye contact locked as he talks. Her hands curling into little fists at her side, nails digging into her flesh. It’s an attempt to stop her crying, a technique she had learned throughout the years. They teach actors how to cry on cue, but they never really teach them how to stop.
Ophelia doesn’t interrupt Levi, not once, not like she would have done, not like she’s dying to do. She waits until he’s finished, once she can tell he’s gotten (hopefully) the majority of his spiel out before she says anything. But there’s nothing left for her to say. He’s said it all. She’s not someone he knows, he can’t look at her, he wants her to be happy but all he does is continue to break her heart, he’s finally happy with someone else, she’s selfish. Ophelia makes a mental list of all the highlights of his speech, fingers itching for her phone so she can memorise it in her notes and never forget it.
“Okay.” She breathes out, finally. Once enough time has passed and the air in the room has all been swallowed up, and she’s suffocating, suffocating so much—she speaks just to let the air out, to breathe again. Her eyes are full of tears, all glossy, she can’t help it. Her lower lip trembles, not just a little, but a lot. Her makeup is going to be smudged when she leaves, she knows that much, and her date is going to be somewhere by the bar but she’s not going to say goodbye. She doesn’t think she has any words left in her to go on.
“I don’t want to fight.” She says, quietly. It’s almost a whisper in the room but there’s no other sounds to distract from what she’s saying. She drops her gaze, releases her fists, and looks at the floor. She fiddles with the multiple rings on her fingers, twisting and twirling them to have something to occupy her time with. She doesn’t want to fight but she doesn’t want him to leave either. That’s what hurts most—that Levi can hurt her like this, all careless with his words and actions with no regard to the impact it’ll have on her, but she won’t want to be anywhere else with anybody else. She misses him. It’s as if she’s had an arm or leg amputated and now she’s trying to navigate through life sans a limb; without something to guide her; without something she knows so well. He’s going to leave, and he’s going to go back to his upgraded girlfriend and she’s going to be left alone all over again.
I can’t even say that I like you. It plays around on her head on repeat, the words swirling around and around and around. She wishes she could erase them but she can’t. Ophelia doesn’t understand this new problem he’s had with her recently, she doesn’t understand how she’s changed or where she went wrong or how she’s become a person he doesn’t even like. She wants to press him for answers, dig into him with claws, but she’s afraid of what he’s going to say. “I don’t get it, Levi.” Ophelia whispers, finally working up the courage to ask, half of it is liquid. “I didn’t change — I don’t know when you started to hate me or what I did,” She pauses, trying to regain her composure as her words just turn to tears, “or,” she gulps, “Or what I did wrong. I don’t understand. You just…” She looks away, glancing at the wall, at the tiles, at her rings, at anything but him. He’s not going to care about what she’s saying, he’s just going to look at her in disgust and say something mean and then leave again. He’s going to go home with someone that’s not her, someone he loves, probably, and she’s still going to be standing in this bathroom, all crushed up. “You just left me.” Ophelia sobs, her hand coming up to her mouth to try and stop them.
“This is so embarrassing,” She manages to get out between breathes, clamping her eyes shut so tightly she can’t see anything. Can’t feel anything. She brings her hand up to hastily wipe at her eyes, demanding the tears to just stop. This is just great, she thinks, the perfect way to spend her night. Sobbing in a bathroom in Warwick to her ex-boyfriend. Ophelia thinks the press would have a field day with something like this, all they like to do to her is rip into her now, tear her totally apart. “Sorry,” She mumbles, shuffling from foot to foot. “I’m usually…well,” She rolls her eyes. Crosses her arms over her chest. Most of her tears have subsided, her breathing back to normal, she can speak clearly again. “I can’t lie to you. I can’t even say I’m not usually like this, when I am.” Little crybaby Ophelia, wailing long into the night after all the other kids have been put to sleep.
There is so much more she wants to say, but she’s scared of it. She’s scared she’s going to cry again. She’s scared he’s not going to listen. She’s scared he’s going to hear her. She’s scared he’s going to leave. There’s such a distance between them, emotionally and physically, and she doesn’t know how to break it. She doesn’t know how they can get back to where they were, only six months ago, but it feels like years ago; maybe it was years ago, maybe she’s been too blind to see the downfall and that’s why it took her by such surprise. It just felt so sudden and she’s lacked any closure since. One minute everything was perfect and the next…he was gone. He had left. She used to wonder if he’d left her for someone else, if he’d cheated on her while on tour or something, sometimes she still wonders. But she doesn’t think she wants to know anymore.
“I’m sorry for tonight.” She apologises, “She seems like a great girl.” Ophelia says it truthfully, not one ounce of a lie in it and that’s what hurts. Nastasya does seem perfect. The perfect girl. The perfect match. “I hope you are happy, Levi. I want you to be happy, I do.” Deep down, somewhere, she does. It’s just harder these days to recognise on a surface level she wants nothing but the best for him. “It just…it hurts. I know we’re over. We’ve been over, but it still feels too soon. For me. You..” Ophelia rolls her eyes, at herself, as she feels the emotion well up in her chest again. But she doesn’t cry. She’s stronger than that. For an actress she’s really bad at keeping her emotions in check, putting on a mask and playing another role. “You knew it was coming. The breakup. It took me by surprise, I’m still adjusting.”
Crossing his arms the moment she began to cry, Levi couldn’t raise his face to meet her eyes. “Ophelia, stop,” he said firmly but gently, probably the gentlest thing he had said to her all night. So what, maybe he was being mean... maybe he was still hurt from all the things that were left unsaid between them. Maybe that was just the way things were between them from now on. Reaching out his hand hesitantly, he pressed his thumb to the mascara trailing down her face. Wiping it away, he grimaced at the pain of touching someone you loved and pretending not to care at all. But it was for the best. She needed to move on, experience a life and a world without him in it. It’d make her stronger. It’d allow her to grow.
“Ophelia--” he began to interrupt before swallowing his words again. He had said his part, she needed to say hers. “I don’t hate you... I never hated you... But I can’t forgive you for all the nights I waited for you and you left me alone. I was a fool for you. I was doing dirt for you. And I waited and waited, and you never came. Remember that time in Tokyo? And Madrid? I was halfway across the world, and I needed my anchor. You were my lifeline home, but you never came. And I can’t wait anymore. That’s just not how our relationship... or my life, works.” Pausing, he took a step back, allowing some distance to settle between them... maybe to cushion the blow of his words, maybe it was to give them both space to breathe, either way he couldn’t be sure.
“I didn’t leave you,” he said with a sigh, exasperated, exhausted, and broken from fighting. It was all they did in the months leading up to their demise, and it was all they were doing now. “Can’t you see-- nothing has changed. I can’t be with you if t h i s is all we do. I was in love with you, I’ll always love you. You’re my other half, whether I want to admit it or not. But it’s because I love you that I need space from you-- more of, I think that you need space from me and you just don’t realize it yet. I don’t want you to be thirty and think I robbed you of something, of these experiences everyone is supposed to have. I had them in college, I was able to be who I wanted without the spotlight. You’re still figuring yourself out, and I don’t want to expect too much from you. I don’t want to be the person to hold you back. I care about you too much for that.”
“And seeing you like this-- you don’t even know. It just rips my heart out. I hate seeing you cry, I hate it. I hate fighting. I hate looking at you and feeling this resentment, this anger, this-- whatever this is. I hate being mad at you. But it’s like I can’t stop, I can’t stop resenting you for all those moments we should have had that you just blew off or didn’t even show up for. Remember the AMA’s? You were supposed to be my date. All anyone could ask me all night was where you were. And I realized that I need my career to be about me, the same way your life should be all about y-o-u right now. Because you’re young, and you deserve the world.” His tone was softening, his resolve crumbling. He needed to go, because talking to her opened up every old wound, every feeling, every thing he had been suppressing for the past six months since their breakup. “And I-” he paused, drawing in a deep breath. “We just can’t be in each other’s life right now. I can’t be the person you call at 4AM when you need someone to miss.”
“I’m sorry Ophelia-- I need to go.”
With that, he brushed past her, swinging the door of the bathroom open and closed as he escaped what felt like a prison closing in. His emotions felt suffocating, all consuming... and he just needed to leave. Grabbing Nastasya by the arm, he threw down two $100 bills and motioned for the valet to bring his car around. Casting one last glance over his shoulder, the last thing he saw at Warwick was Ophelia emerging from the bathroom. This time, he had really had nothing left to say.
