Perfect Denial

It was two days until Aaron was due home and two days until Bill and the boys were leaving America and flying home to Germany.

Dana couldn’t remember when she’d been happier. Lying in Bills arms felt perfect. With him, she was home and she knew no matter how long she lived, no matter what happened there wouldn’t be a man that held her heart so thoroughly. It was Bill. It would always be Bill.

But Bill had been distant lately. Over the last few days it seemed he had withdrawn into himself. He was thinking about something, Dana knew, and it was weighing heavily on him.

For Bill was indeed thinking. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking since they had bumped into Aaron’s friend Sandy. It had been a close call and Dana had been able to avoid the awkward encounter just in time. Any later, Sandy would have spotted Bill and Dana acting as more than “just friends”.

Dana had assured Bill she was going to break up with Aaron when he arrived home from his parents but the more Bill thought about it, the more uneasy he was.

Was it really right of him to ask Dana to break things off with Aaron? Aaron had and still was such a huge part of her life. She’d been with the guy since she was seventeen, two long years. He was causing her to give up a precious moment in her life, memories that would be ruined because of him.
And not only would she be leaving Aaron. Bill had expected Dana to follow him to Germany in a matter of weeks. That meant leaving behind her friends and the only family she had left; her father.

He knew she’d do anything to be with him. Anything to make him happy.

Just like he knew he’d do anything for her. Anything. And as much as it ripped him apart, he knew what he had to do and what he had to say.

~PxD~
He stared out at the freak thunder storm and watched the raindrops slowly make their way down the window pane and the jet black sky in the background occasionally highlighted white by the streaks of lightning. He automatically rubbed circles on Dana’s shoulder, who was lying with her head in his lap, watching her favourite TV show.

Criminal minds ended and Dana stood up and stretched “That was a good one” she muttered to Bill and lay down again, this time on Bill and she kissed him.

“I’m going to miss you when you’re gone” she murmured, burying her face into his chest.

Bills heart broke
“Well, it was going to end sooner or later”

Danas head shot up and she looked at him, trying to figure out the meaning of his words “What?”

Bill pushed her off him and stood up from the couch and ran his hands through his hair. He couldn’t look at her
“Well, Aarons home…we weren’t going to last. He’s back, you won’t be lonely”

Dana felt the tears start behind her eyes, but she pushed them back in her mind, refusing to let them fall. She wouldn’t cry. She didn’t understand. Bill, her Bill. He was breaking up with her, no he was dumping her. He who had spent weeks trying to get her to admit her love for him. She had, she was ready to give up everything for him and now he was ending it. It hurt as if he had just stabbed her with a knife in the middle of her heart.

“Bill, what are you saying?” she whispered

This time Bill looked at her, straight in the eye
“I think you know what I’m saying”

She flinched at the harsh tone in his voice and watched speechless as Bill walked into the bathroom and as the door clicked shut, the sound seeming loud in the now silent room, she now knew he had ended it. They had ended.

~PxD~

Bill slumped on the toilet seat. He had done it, he had broken her heart and it was almost too painful to watch. He had witnessed how she had realised what she was doing and immediately her eyes had become cold and uncaring. Hiding the hurt he knew she was feeling. He had never wanted her to look at him like that. But she had and it was his own fault.

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, his tousled hair, his tired eyes and his lips stained slightly red from Dana’s lip-gloss.

“You bastard” he whispered to himself but the words seemed to vibrate through the air, hurling themselves at him over and over again.

He looked at the shelf as something glittering caught his eye. It was Dana's ring; it had been her mothers and was her most treasured possession. She must have taken it off for a shower…
He picked it up and traced the swirling designs on either side of the purple stone. And then as if a sharp piece of ice had struck his heart he realised what a mistake he had made…

Bill flung the door open and ran out into the empty hotel room. He looked around frantically and then ran into the bedroom.
It was empty and everything was gone.
Her clothes, her hairbrush, even the make up she had left scattered on the bedroom dresser.

The bed was made, his clothes where on the floor, which was where he had left them. It was if she had never existed. As if the rooms had never had her walk through them, hear her laugh, see her smile.

Bill sunk to his knees and clutched the ring in his hand, the only memoir of her left in the building.

What had he done?