Chapter 1
Without the risk of sounding like a cold-hearted bitch, I needed him to leave. The feeling of wanting Weston to leave had passed and now, it was a need.
We had been broken up for twenty-seven minutes now, nearly twenty-eight, and he was still crying. His tears had already soaked the first pillow and now, it appeared that he was on a mission to deliver the same fate to a second.
Lucky me! Notice the sarcasm?
Huffing quietly, I crossed my arms over my chest. My lips pulled down into a frown at the sight of him. Even more so when he turned his head to look up at me, the accusation evident in his watery eyes.
If I hadn’t just broken his heart, I would have thought he was acting pathetic.
How was I supposed to get him to leave without making him cry now? Without the risk of him soaking my entire bed with his tears?
I hadn’t had much experience in consoling the crying, especially one that was crying as much as Weston right now.
I allowed twenty-seven minutes to turn into thirty-three. When there were no signs of his crying stopping anytime soon, I knew that I had to intervene. If I wanted him to leave, then I had to intervene or he would end up spending all night here and that the last thing I needed. Especially on a school night.
“Weston,” I called out to him in a small voice, refusing to budge from where I was standing at the end of my bed. “Please don’t cry,” I murmured, releasing a quiet, airy sigh. I may be tired of my boyfriend, now ex-boyfriend, crying his eyes out like every near and dear to him had been brutally murdered, but that didn’t mean that I needed to treat him badly. Other than feeling like there was nothing left sticking around for between us, he had done nothing wrong. In fact, he had done everything right and truthfully, I felt like that was the issue. Like that was what had blown out the fire between us.
Weston had pursued me for months before I had finally caved in and agreed to go out with him.
It was at the end of last year; sophomore year. He had asked me out for the billionth time but this time, it was on the last day of school, at the very end of the day and in front of everyone. I had agreed with a forced smile because I couldn’t think of anything worse than publicly rejecting someone. Even if they refused to take no for an answer.
As soon as we were alone, I blew up at him. I released all my frustrations of the past couple of months that his endless pursuit had caused me, and Weston had stood and taken it all in silence.
But then the next morning, on the first day of summer, he had shown up to my house with breakfast. I refused to open the door for him and let him wait out there for a whole hour before he eventually gave in and left. That continued for a further four days.
On the fifth day, I finally gave in. It was a Saturday and Weston came in to have breakfast with my father and I. That quickly became a staple in my day and by the end of summer, we were inseparable.
But all of that changed as soon as we got back to school for our last and final year. Our senior year.
While we still remained inseparable, mostly due to Weston and his friends refusing to leave me and my two friends alone, it started to chip away at us. No longer did our relationship feel free and enjoyable, but it was starting to weigh down on me. I felt restricted and caged, only heightened by the many stresses that came with it being our last year of school. Not to mention all the college applications hat forced us to think of our future.
Now, looking back, I couldn’t help but think that I had strung him along; something which I felt terrible for. Instead of leaving him then and there like I should have, I had resorted to simply tolerating him. Tolerating him and his friends who after six months at school, I still didn’t like.
What was worse was Weston with his friends. An unbearable combination that I had somehow managed to overlook when I agreed to going out with him in the first place.
Very quickly, we went from spending nearly every day together to only seeing each at school at my behest. While we spent an innumerable amount of time together during school hours, I tried to minimise our time outside of school as much as possible. That was the only way I could tolerate him.
Fast forward a few moments and I couldn’t do it anymore.
I couldn’t string Weston along anymore. Not when I couldn’t see a future for us. Not when he hadn’t done anything wrong and had treated me perfectly for the nine months that we had dated. Other than being insanely unbearable, of course.
That was why I had broken up with him today. I was supposed to do it last weekend, and several weekends before that as well. But it was like Weston knew what I was trying to do. It was like he knew that I was trying to break up with him so whenever I tried to bring it up, he would find a way to distract me.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit that sex often clouded my mind. Especially when Weston was so good at it but alas, this just couldn’t continue anymore.
Wecouldn’t continue anymore.
“Are you even listening to me?” Weston cried out, dropping the second pillow that he had completely soaked now with his tears.
“I am,” I lied smoothly, shaking my head to rid the thoughts that had distracted me previously. “What were you saying again?”
“You’re making a mistake,” Weston repeated himself, his face now stained with dry tears. His eyes were red but I was glad that they were no longer wet. They looked uncomfortably dry, but at least he was no longer blubbering like a baby. “We’re so good together. Why are you trying to ruin that? Why are you trying to ruin us?”
“There hasn’t been anything between us for a long time,” I sighed. Forcing myself to be a bit more sensitive to his clearly overwhelming feelings, I moved around the side of my bed to sit down next to him. Although, I made sure to leave a considerable gap so he wouldn’t get his hopes up for no reason. “If I’m being completely honest with myself, we should have broken up at the end of last summer instead of stringing this along.”
“What are you talking about? How can you say that?” he exclaimed with a sniffle, clearly not in agreement with me. While that was unfortunate, there wasn’t anything that he could do or say to change my mind. “Please don’t say that,” he continued to beg, his eyes once again wetting with unshed tears. Though I was sure that they wouldn’t remain unshed for long. “We’re so good together. Why are you breaking up with me? What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I pursed my legs. Trying to hide my frustrations, I reached out to place my hand on his shoulder, the action far too awkward for two people that had been dating for near enough ten months. “I know that it’s a cliché but it’s not you. It’s me.”
While I had hoped that my words would make him feel better, if only by a little, it appeared that my plan had completely backfired. Instead of receiving some sort of emotional relief which I had anticipated, he sniffled some more and wiped his nose on the back of his arm.
Trying not to turn my nose up at the disgusting action, I forced myself to continue. “Things haven’t been good between us since we started the year. We should have broken up then but we didn’t and I think that’s where we went wrong. We should have quit this when things started to go awry.”
“Why are you giving up?” Weston groaned at her, rubbing the tears away with the back of his hand. “You’re not even giving us a chance to fix things.”
“There’s nothing left to fix, Weston.”
“We can work through this.”
“I’m sorry, Weston. I don’t think we can and even if we could, I don’t want to,” I murmured the last part, knowing that it would hit him the hardest.
“Why not? What’s wrong with me?” he asked, looking more melancholy than offended.
“Nothing,” I exhaled, cringing at his particular question. “There’s nothing wrong with you. And there’s nothing wrong with me, either but we’re just not right for each other. I know that and deep down, I think you know that too.”
“How are we not right for each other?”
“For one, I hate football,” I said, looking him square in the eye. “I hate going to all your games. I hate having to sit on those uncomfortable bleachers and watch. The only way I’m able to tolerate it is because I’m able to get a couple of cool shots for the magazine but that never takes too long,” I paused when he appeared to get more visibly upset. “You don’t deserve that. You deserve a girlfriend who loves to go to every single one of your football games. Someone that will cheer you on and be so proud with how good you are out on the field.”
“You’re not proud of me?” Weston asked, having picked up on the least important part of her speech.
“I didn’t say that. Stop putting words in my mouth!” I couldn’t help but groan in frustrations, having to count backwards from five again. This was a newer habit of mine. Something which I had adopted to keep myself calm, mostly when I was around Weston and he was being his usual needy self. The needy and clingy self that only seemed to come out when we were alone; something which I had actively tried to avoid these past months. I was confidence that my avoidance of my boyfriend was the only thing that had kept us together for these long ten months. A relationship which should have been cut short at the three or four month mark. That meant that we had been living on borrowed time for over half a year now, yet it appeared that I was the only one that saw it that way.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I couldn’t help but groan. Squeezing my eyes shut momentarily, I started off at five and counted all the way down to one, needing to calm myself down before I said something to further aggravate the already uncomfortable situation. “I can’t do this anymore,” I huffed, having reached the end of my tether. Jumping up to my feet, I walked up to my bedroom door and held it open for him. “I’m sorry that I have to do this Westin, but you need to leave.”
“What?” Weston’s lips parted in what appeared to be shock as he blinked up at me, unmoving.
“You can’t really be surprised right now,” I resorted to obnoxious shrieking when he continued to refuse moving. “I need to leave Weston so please, just get out!”
“Clem,” he called out to me in a quiet whisper as he rose to his feet, but I refused to listen.
“Out!” I shrieked again, holding the door open wider and physically gesturing toward it him to see himself not just out of my room, but out of my life too.
Thankfully, Weston listened this time. But not without sending me those pathetic puppy dog eyes he believed would get him anything that he wanted.
Too bad I was immune to them.
The moment Weston was out of my room, I slammed the door shut behind him, only missing hitting him on the back by a mere graze. The moment it shut with a click, I exhaled deeply and almost immediately, I felt so much better.
While I no longer had a boyfriend, I now felt free. I no longer felt like I was being suffocated, even when I wasn’t physically with Weston. Instead, I felt rather hungry.
It was a good thing that it was time for dinner, wasn’t it?
With that thought in mind, I let myself out of my bedroom and jogged down the stairs into the dining room where I ate dinner every Sunday night. Most other evenings it was either up in my room, in front of the TV or out on the garden swing. Always alone. But not on Sunday nights.
When I didn’t spy my father there, I moved into the kitchen, following the aromatic scent that had my mouth watering in anticipation.
“You really had that boy in tears,” my father hummed from where he was plating up dinner for the both of us. While we didn’t spend much time together as he was busy with work, he always made time to have a Sunday roast with me even though we weren’t British. Personally, I thought it was more of an excuse to keep himself because as roasts always took long and my father never liked to sit around in one place for too long. Sometimes I helped but today, I had other things on my agenda. Now that I had crossed the unfortunate task off my list, the least I could do was help by laying out the table for the both of us. “I never thought my precious Clementine to be such a heartbreaker.”
“I didn’t mean to break his heart, dad,” I sighed, reaching into the fridge to grab a beer for the both of us; light for me. While I was under the legal drinking age, my father didn’t mind as long as I did it in the house under his supervision, and limited to only a bottle at the very most.
Beer, I liked. Anything else tasted trash to me.
“I’m sure you didn’t sweetheart, but the fact of the matter is that you did,” my father chuckled as he walked into the dining room, placing a plate in front of me before doing the same in front of his seat. As there was only the two of us left living here – my three older siblings having already moved out – we opted to sit across from each other as opposed to at the two heads of the table.
“I couldn’t continue being with him, dad,” I mumbled, stabbing my fork into a healthy-looking potato, perfectly marinated in the same spices that had been used on the chicken. Before, we used to do an actual whole chicken as there were five of us to devour it, both of my brothers eating enough for two people, but since then we had downgraded to a chicken leg each. There was far less waste that way.
“I’m glad that you’re doing what is best for you, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, dad.”
“I did quite like Weston, though.”
“Dad!” I groaned aloud, my lips curling down into a petulant pout as I stared across the table at my father, knowing that he was only teasing me.
“Fine, I won’t speak about it anymore,” he chuckled and held his hands up in surrender. “But I can’t say that I’m mad about you having more free time to focus on your studies.”
Once he had said that, I knew that he would move onto my choice of college course next. I had gotten into Columbia which my father was ecstatic about, but he wasn’t similarly over the moon regarding me wanting to study Graphic Design and Media.
My father was partner at a law firm in the next town over. My eldest sister, Rachel, was a software engineer. The second eldest, Bruce was a doctor and August an accountant. My father considered all of them to have chosen credible and highly reputable career paths for themselves. And while I was very much a daddy’s girl, especially with me being the youngest, I knew that he wasn’t very fond of the field of study that I planned to go into.
Weston had always expressed interest in law, something which he made very clearly whenever he was in the presence of my father. I think that was one of things that he liked about my choice of boyfriend. One of the things that he disliked about my boyfriend was how much time Weston wanted to spend together.
While my father appreciated intelligence, he had always drilled into all of my siblings and I that over intelligence, determination and hard work would always triumph. As those two required plenty of time, that meant my father wasn’t the fondest of how much time a high school relationship, or any type of relationship for that matter, required.
Especially since I knew that he was secretly still rooting for me to change my mind about the course and take something a bit more practical. His words, not mine.
Weston, on the other hand, had always been very supportive of what I wanted to do. In fact, he had been the one to encourage me to apply for what I wanted at college, and not what my father wanted of me. That was one part of him that I would miss.
“Clementine? Are you sure you’re okay?” my father called out to me, his gentle voice breaking my train of thought.
Glancing up, I saw that he had already finished his meal while I was yet to touch most of mine.
“Sorry dad. Just doing some thinking,” I shook my head, forking a large piece of chicken into my mouth.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Maybe later but not right now,” I denied, shaking my head.
“Well, I’m always here if you want to talk kiddo.”
“I know. Thanks dad,” I smiled sweetly at him despite the dread that ate away at me in the pit of my stomach. As great as Weston was – despite the obvious reasons that I had chosen to break up with him over – I knew him to be quite petty. It didn’t help that he was the cliché star quarterback and most popular guy in school. For those reasons and so many more, I had a feeling that he wouldn’t take matters as calmly as I wished he would.
Hopefully we could both be adults about this whole thing.
-
Layla Knight
26.06.2021
