He could feel his chest contracting, tightening to a point that he wasn’t certain he could breathe, watching as she left, desperate to follow after her, desperate to undo all that had been done. With a shaky sigh that felt like a full body shudder, he turned back to the mess that was their room. It wasn’t unusual for the room to be a mess, it didn’t matter how often he tried to keep ahead of it, clothing always seemed to be strewn everywhere, but today was different. It wasn’t that Riley had thrown her dirty clothing near the basket and not quite managed to make the mark, it was his clothes and his clothes alone that were messily strewn about the place, a stark reminder of what he had done.
He couldn’t just let her go, he couldn’t let his failing cause everything he cared about to come to an end, to lose the one thing he loved above everything else. With a frustrated grunt at his own stupidity he grabbed at his clothes angrily, throwing on his pants with a frown, almost falling over in the process. Yanking his shirt off the dresser it had landed on he hurried his way out the room, stuffing his arms through it as he made his way out the bedroom door. But he didn’t make it far. She was there, sitting on the top of the stairs, and he had never seen her like that before. He didn’t know there was any part of him left that could still break, yet that sight seemed to make the last part of him crumble.
He didn’t want to startle her, he was terrified this time she would run for sure, so he didn’t sit down, no matter how much he wanted to. He didn’t wrap his arms around her, he didn’t utter reassuring words into her ear, with promises he would never do it again, instead he leant against the wall, making sure to give her space should she need it. “Talk to me, please,” he practically pleaded with her.
She didn’t know how long she was sitting there. It could have been moments, it could have been hours. All she was aware of were the tears on her cheeks, the dull ache in her back, and the pounding that was starting within her skull. Riley thought she could hear Xander moving in their bedroom, doing god only knew what, but she wasn’t sure she cared. She was finding it hard to care about much at the moment, the small amount of thoughts that she even had muddled and tangled within her head. How had they gotten here? What had she done to lead them to this? Or had it been inevitable? Was he not the same man anymore, that she had spent the past seven years with?
Riley jumped slightly at the sound of his voice, not having realized he had come to be standing right beside her. She moved, her face in her arm away from him, staring out between the rails of the banister. “Talk to you about what?” She whispered, voice small and broken as she sat there, already having given up. She didn’t even feel like herself, it was like she was an empty shell. She didn’t have any fight left in her. Wiping at her eyes, she sniffled. “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s over. It’s.... it’s done. It has to be.”
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