Choked Words, Cold Hands
I don't know what it is
Got me wrapped around your cold fingertips
Maybe it's my fault I can't walk away
Maybe I just started feeling a little shame
-Unethical, Faouzia
Closing the door behind you, you sank to the floor and tucked your knees up to your chest, a sob lodged in your throat as you went over the day once again. As you remembered his dismissiveness, his coldness, his lack of anything that showed he cared about you even a fraction of the amount you cared about him. How he just stood there while you broke and cracked down the center of your being. A single tear had rolled down your face then and that was the tipping point. That was the moment when you realized… he was never going to care about you like you cared about him.
He was never going to love you how you needed to be loved.
Looking into Jamie's eyes you had known. Known for a long while now that while he cared about you, while he saw you in a way that was special to him, he wasn't willing to… to sacrifice for you. He wasn't willing to compromise even when you bent and gave every single damned day the two of you existed as an us.
Biting down on your hand to muffle the sound of distress leaking from your body, your throat, your eyes, like broken faucets, you shook and broke right there on your bedroom floor. The pictures of you and Jamie were up on the walls, his knowing grin and your bright one staring down at you with a knowledge that this was always going to be how it ended. Never were you going to get to keep him and keep yourself in the process. It was one or the other never both. Never a gray in the black and white that was Jamie fucking Porter.
Stifling a sob, you reached up and locked the door so that Deja and Cam couldn't, should they learn what was happening, come in and find you. And they would find out. How couldn't they when he was their friend too. How could this stay quiet when you just broke your own heart and walked away from the man who should have held it together. The man who you loved with every fiber of your being, but not more than you loved yourself. Never more than that.
Tasting the salt of your tears, you leaned over your knees and swallowed every wail that wanted to escape. Bit back every cry of anguish you wanted to release. Maybe it shouldn't matter. Maybe you were the one to end things. Maybe you should feel strong and empowered for standing up for yourself like you did.
But you didn't.
No, you didn't feel anything but bleeding, searing, aching pain in your chest, in your stomach, in your throat, in your soul. Clutching at your mouth and biting at your lips, you choked again on the tears that were flowing so freely down your cheeks.
You did right by you and that was what was important. You wanted to believe that. Wanted to understand that leaving Jamie was for your own good. Because if he loved you, it wasn't enough. It wasn't the love you needed. It wasn't the type of care that you craved and cherished. It was a dismissive kind of love. It was a type of love that could leave you in the cold for days at a time before he remembered to turn on the heat or even give you a blanket. Jamie Porter knew how to love, he just didn't know how to love you.
Letting your hands fall from your face you swallowed the sounds of despair that wanted to exist in the world. You had things to do. People to see. Friends to make understand that you did the right thing…
You had to pretend, just as you had before, that Jamie Porter wasn't going to destroy you from where he stood. Shaking away the last of the tears that you would let yourself cry today for Jamie fucking Porter, just as you had yesterday and the day before, you stood on shaky legs and made your way over to your closet. You needed to change. You needed to shower. You needed to breathe and then… then maybe you could remember who you were before you encountered the man that still held a large piece of you in his cold,so fucking cold, hands.