Be a Doll(101)

“You can stay here if you need some time to find a place to go, Lila. I will not throw you out.’’ He kept his back to me and even though I saw some tension in the set of his shoulders, it wasn’t much more or any different to his usual self.

“I can’t stay here.’’ I stood up abruptly, my legs shaking so badly that I put a hand on the desk to make sure I wouldn’t face plant. My eyes never left Mathis’ shadow. Right there in front of the big window and the city laid out outside, it seemed as if he was the master of the world, controlling it following his whims. It enforced the fact that he had always had all the cards in this game and I had nothing. “I’m going to pack some clothes and…’’

I had nowhere to go.

“I can book you a room at the Hilton.’’

Should I say thank you? Because all I felt like was screaming or crying. Instead of doing any of those things, I turned around and left the room without a look back. I didn’t want to see him still set on discarding me as if I was a nobody.

I had thought something was changing between us, but I never would have guessed that this would be the outcome.

In that room with my soon-to-be ex-husband I left my heart on the floor. It was useless. The very little I had left beating in my chest, he broke it. Even now I couldn’t fully hate him because I was the stupid woman who let herself entertain the idea of a happy ending. It wouldn’t fall on me like that. To get my happy ending I would create it myself, away from Mathis, away from anything reminding me of my past.

***





MATHIS


I watched Lila rolling her suitcase toward me near the front door. She was breathtaking, even when looking at me with thinly veiled disgust that made my heart bleed out faster in my chest. I kept my stance proud, my eyes hard and my hands tucked away in my pockets to hide how badly I was shaking, holding onto my emotions.

“A suite is booked for you at the Hilton. Feel free to charge your credit card to anything you need until we sort out everything.’’ My voice sounded cold and business-like, everything I didn’t feel on the inside but needed to make her believe.

Her brows lowered further and she nodded. “You should wait a few weeks until everything is signed with Mr. Tober. Your meeting is next week anyway.’’

“I will.’’ I watched as she grabbed her purse, coat and scarf, getting ready fast to brace the cold outside. She made a move to grab her set of keys in the big pot on the console table and then stopped herself, hand mid-air. “It’s funny how habits appear fast,’’ she said quietly before grabbing a hold of the handle of her suitcase again and rolling it to the front door and away from me without looking back at me.

When the door opened and she passed the threshold, my heart seized in my chest, but I held my ground. I didn’t move and I watched her leaving my life. I didn’t spare myself any details, both because I wanted to commit Lila to memory forever and because that pain was proof that I felt something, that I was capable of love, that she gave me something by awakening me and pushing me away from the nightmare I had built around myself. I had no doubt as to now that I would go back to what my life was before Lila, saved of a few details like fucking around when only Lila made me want sex now, but the man she was unearthing after years of being smothered by walls would be gone with her.

“Goodbye, Mathis,’’ she said, the finality in her tone stole my breath. I willed her to turn around and look at me one last time, but she didn’t. Blindly, she closed the door behind her.

I was alone at home, a place that felt emptier than it had ever felt before.

I leaned heavily against the wall and didn’t pay attention when the artwork hung up there threatened to fall when my shoulder bumped into it. The strength I used to stay up on my feet and collected in front of Lila had deserted me with her exit.

My breathing sped up erratically while my lungs burned up. Dizziness came next with wobbly legs shaking so much that I let myself slide down the wall until I was sitting there in the entry hall next to the console where Lila left her keys to the apartment.

I closed my eyes tightly and didn’t fight the buzzing sound in my ears, the prickles in my eyes, the heavy heart beats of my heart. I didn’t fight what I felt, because I didn’t want to feel nothing. It would cheapen my growing feelings for a woman who was my wife, even if only briefly.

A heartbreak hurt. It hurt like hell and made you suffocate with emotions that had no outlet. All the poetic bullshit about heartbreak was just that; bullshit. A heartbreak wasn’t beautiful or could be described cleanly. It wasn't the kind of thing you could push away and forget about. It was there, so big and ugly it made you shudder and internally beg for something, anything to alleviate the mess inside.

I felt my phone vibrating in my slacks against my thigh, but I didn’t move to answer. I couldn’t. My jaw was locked so tight I couldn’t fathom uttering a single word right now. All I could do at that moment was to try and keep it together, not break down when everything inside me screamed and broke.

At that moment, I grieved, not for my brother, but a future Lila made me see could have been mine if only our circumstances would have been different.

Lila…

She deserved so much more than an arranged marriage and a man like me. That thought was the only thing soothing the sharpest edges of the shards my heart broke into.