Betrayer

MY HEART JUMPED into my throat and a wave of nausea passed over me. Her accusing words were blocked out by my own feelings of betrayal. I felt the sensation of fresh tears begin to well up inside my eyelids, I couldn’t let them fall. But how? How did she find out what I had deliberately kept from her for months? Only one other person knew, it had to have been him. Her words came back into focus and I couldn’t look her in the eyes. My hands I noticed, were frozen on the keyboard, looking to me like two un-obedient spiders, unable to move without force. The common feelings of butterflies was present in my stomach. I felt the need to vomit, if she had said one more word, I might have.

My heart was thumping in anticipation of telling her what secrets I withheld. Would she ask me questions? Or assume that she already knew the answers? One of my tears rebelliously slipped from my eye, and in that instant, I believed she knew everything, could see everything in that tear. My stomach turned over again and she stared at me with tears in her own eyes. She stood to leave and I released the rest of my imprisoned tears. She turned back and mouthed the words ‘I love you’ which was from the greatest depths of our friendship. She was my best friend and I was letting her go. I couldn’t move, couldn’t utter one syllable. I thought my own words would betray me and dig my own grave for which my still hands were unable. Perhaps her ghost words, not quite spoken, meant she would forgive me in the future. I felt my fingers come to life, life that I had not given them. They moved across the keyboard. The words ‘I love you too’ appeared on the screen. She turned, and left. I felt a wave of panic, perhaps relief wash over my body. I stirred in my chair, making my muscles ache as if I hadn’t used them for days. Without realizing it, I had stopped crying. My eyelids burned with the arrival of new tears. This time I cried for her, for our friendship that had taken so long to build, and would take longer to rebuild. Trust, I find now is key. But it wasn’t a matter of trust. I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to hurt her.

Him, it was him who my thoughts settled on now. I let more tears fall for him. Knowing that the trust I had felt with him was now gone forever. We both agreed, not to tell her, and he let it slip. Was it anger, or regret that entered my body? I hated and loved him at the same time. Hatred is a strong emotion, and my only premonition was to talk to him. Find out why. She was his past, more past than I. And somehow, as if someone was looking over my shoulder, I felt the past sneaking up with me. If I was to pay for my mistakes, so would he.

As I write this I look out of my steel bars that I have grown so accustomed to. I touch one, and pull back quickly, a shock has been sent through my finger. A chill is in the stale air, felt so sharply through my thin prison gown. But in the end, you deserved it. I write this for you my love, the one I hate.

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