“Staying the hell away from me? You approached me Porter! The only reason we’re having this conversation right now is because you decided to butt into my business, somewhere you no longer have any right to be,” Tilly accused, trying an failing to keep her emotions out of her voice. She didn’t want to let him know how much he’d effected her, how even now he could hurt her no matter how much she wanted to give him no control. He was right, that had been exactly what she had wanted to hear. As though his admission that he had been in the wrong, that he was in fact an asshole who had shaken up her life irreparably and then just left when she needed him would somehow close that chapter of her life and allow her to bury it once again in the back of her mind where it belonged. But actually hearing the words did nothing, it changed nothing. He had still left without a word. If anything the word only made her feel hollow inside. “You’re right, that is all I wanted to hear,” She admitted, before shaking her head and correcting him, “But there is no possible way that you hate yourself as much as I hate you. I hate you with every fibre of my being Porter. As much as I wish I could say that I never even spared you a thought, I’d be lying. It hasn’t been much, but every time I have thought of you in the last year I have hoped that you were somewhere miserable and suffering. So you confirming what I already knew, does nothing. I don’t want a peace offering, I want you to disappear again. And I don’t mean leave me alone, I mean disappear without a trace and not give a damn about anybody you might be leaving behind, just like before.”
“I thought you were going to drink that shit, not torture somebody with it. I was looking out for you,” he insisted, raising his voice a little before stopping himself, taking a moment in silence to gather his thoughts. He took the baseball hat off of his head, running his hand through his hair before holding it in front of him, keeping his hands occupied as Tilly rattled his nerves. He’d just said the words, made it known that he realized Tilly hated him and yet, actually hearing it from her, those very words said without any mistaking them cut through him like hot knives. He felt her gaze on him like a chest wound, causing him to hold his breath subconsciously. “I was miserable and I was suffering,” he assured her, it felt like the only opportunity he could take to say anything back to her, otherwise at a complete loss for words. “I still am,” he said more quietly, every fiber of his being desperate to tell her to go fuck herself, to tell all of Northlake to go fuck themselves and to then drink it away but it instead, his hands tightened around the baseball cap and he said nothing more for the moment, promising himself that if his sobriety was the only triumph he could possibly claim that night, he'd take it. “I never stopped caring about you Tilly, I never stopped giving a damn. I just- things changed for me. They got fucked up- and you wouldn’t understand,” it was impossible to try and explain it to her, worse with the smell of alcohol on her breath. “I’m going home, sorry for messing with your night,”
