It's Over

Arriving back at home felt like I was walking into a live pyre. I didn't bother to call Carol or anyone. I knew it would be the worst if she would know about any of this that was happening to me. I didn't have enough energy left in me to move around the house doing my chores, cleaning myself, or just existing even.

I crashed over my bed like nothing was left in my life and laid there till I heard the calling bell ring as many times as it could till it could register in my ears. I got up and realized there was someone at the door, and it seemed like someone who knew she was home and wanted to see me at any cost. And all she could think of was one person who would be like that.

I stood up from my bed with an energy that I didn't know was there in me until then. "I hope it is Dylan. I knew he couldn't leave me like that and go," I said to myself as I sprinted to the door, and as I opened the door, my heart sank deeper than the titanic itself into the Atlantic Ocean.

"Hey, Meg! How are you feeling now?" Carol hugged me as soon as I opened the door. "A bit better. Who told you, by the way?" I asked as she pulled away and made her way inside. She settled on the couch, throwing her handbag to a different corner, and looked at me with a sympathetic smile.

"Come, sit down! It doesn't matter who told me what matters is that you are going through the worst time of your life right now. And as a friend, I have to be with you," I knew who sent her, but I was not sure what she knows and what is that she is told. I walked to the couch and sat down next to her.

"What do you know, Carol?" I asked after giving her a moment. Before I could speak, I needed to know if I wouldn't be letting too much out, which can ruin the entire scenario even more than it already is ruined. "Dylan called me, he said that you guys have broken up and you need support. I was really sad that you didn't call me yourself, and you needed him to tell me this."

Carol's words made me realize for sure that Dylan and I are over, and he does care for me, but only enough to leave me be and in my own space. "I... I was not sure what to tell you." I admitted and knew my voice was cracking. It is hard to talk when emotions speak louder, and you have no control over them.

"Hey! It is alright, I can understand. Even Michael and I broke up, like a week before. I did warn you, girl! These men don't do true love and stuff, they just here for a little excitement, and when you give them, that it is over," she mused as she looked away from me. I couldn't say if she was going through a bad patch, and burdening her with my pain felt wrong.

"Are you okay, Carol?" I asked after a little pause. She turned to me with a faint smile and said, "I am because I never expected anything from him. But I must tell you one thing. I did have hopes for yours. Dylan seemed to be into you, especially the way he looks at you. And he even made you meet his family. I don't understand how he flipped like this so fast."

I nodded in response because I didn't know how to respond to that anymore. I felt an urge in myself to open up to another sou,l and I thought I could trust her sometimes, talking about the things that burden you so much can be lightened just by talking about it to another.

"Carol, I want to tell you something. But please don't be angry with me. I want you to hear me, and I know what I have done, so you don't need to remind me that I was a fool," my eyes were flooding already with tears as I gulped down on the lump that formed in my throat. Carol turned her face at me, her eyebrows were curled, and she looked tensed as she asked, "what is it, Meg? What did you do?"

I looked at her and thought to myself, where should I start and what all things would make sense to her when I say it all out loud. "We were not really in a relationship, Carol. We were pretending to be in one," I said after a long, thoughtful pause. She turned to me shocked, and her eyes bulged out like she saw a ghost.

She took a sharp breath in before she responds, "what do you mean?" I hung my head down, praying if I could sink into the ground and never exist to having to tell this story to anyone again. "Pretending as in you two were never a thing? But why?" she asked.

"He wanted to pose that he has moved on from his past tragedies in families and asked me if I could help him in doing this. I said yes, now it all just crashed down, and I am crushed beneath it," I said, cursing myself under the breath as I realized how stupid I was to say yes to something like that, knowing that it will never have a happy ending.

"But why did you say yes? Who says yes to things like this? Do you even know him enough? What were you expecting, Meg?" Carol showered me with several questions all at once, making me sick to my stomach at the thought of my grave mistakes. I looked down, expressing my utter disappointment in myself.

"What can I say, Carol? I made a mistake of falling in love with a man who had his heart locked and, the key was thrown deep into a sea which I could never access?" I said as I looked away from her. "So, you were expecting to dive deep into that sea or something? Do you know how foolish you sound?"

I shook my head as I thought about it and felt utterly stupid that I hated myself for hoping to win his affections even after his repeated cautioning over his emotional unavailability. There was no one to blame here except me, and Carol was right about it. "So, tell me one thing, did he use you physically as well, even after having done all of this? Because from what I have seen, he was definitely into you sexually."

Carol stared at me, and I noticed even that couldn't be something that I can blame him for as I was the one who asked him to have me with the complete knowledge of what I was getting into, and telling Carol about it would enrage her even more. "It is not like that, Carol. He treated me with the utmost respect every time, even if we had anything sexual; he had nothing to do with it."

As soon as I finish, she facepalms and then turns to me with exasperation, reflecting on her face, "Were you fucking yourself? Well, figuratively seems about right, but don't tell me you just raped him, and he lied there fighting you. He is equally responsible; he should never make an offer like this to any woman in the first place." Carol was getting more and more irritated with the information that she was discovering.

"And he asked me to marry him after we met his family!" I revealed because there nothing for me to lose; it's strange bravery that you find when everything is lost. "What the actual fuck? Now I get it, he was buying you as a toy, and he found that his family likes you, so he wanted to keep you for the rest of his life. There is no better explanation for this, and you just let him buy you. So what was your price for doing all this?"

I got a little irritated by her interrogation, but I was a guy and had not much strength to debate with her about it. "I wanted nothing, and all I ever wanted was him. I know it's stupid, and I don't deny it, Carol." I knew nothing I could say that will make this sound better and nothing that I can do to change things back to normal. I was even contemplating to leave the city and never turn back.