The Road.

I stare at his sleeping face, so calm and in control as if everything in his life is absolutely perfect, but how can it when he’s destroying more than one person’s heart?

I close my eyes and rest my head against my bedroom wall; as much as I didn’t want to, I had to break it off with Alex today.

“Morning beautiful,” I hear him say and then yawn causing me to open my eyes and look at him.

“Morning,” I reply with a frown.

“What’s wrong?”

I shake my head, “nothing.”

“Meghan, I know you want to tell me something.”

I bite my lip and look away from him; I take in a deep breath and close my eyes.

This is it. I say to myself before exhaling.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I say in a low voice.

I open my eyes and look at him as he stares at me with a hurt expression.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t take it anymore Alex; I don’t want to feel guilty and responsible for my sister’s pain.”

“You don’t have because it’s not your fault, it’s all mine.”

“I shouldn’t have gone looking for you at the show. How could I be so stupid? How I could I think I could do this without feeling anything for you.”

“I was the one who kissed you, I was the one who came up with the stupid rules,” Alex says with a raised tone of voice as he gets out of the bed.

“Meghan,” He whispers as I feel him kneeling in front of me.

“Look at me,” he says cupping my face with his hands.

I look at him with sad watery eyes.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“Don’t, please don’t.” I say as I pull away from him.

“How can you love me after only five months? It’s a ridiculous thing.”

“But you love me-”

“I don’t love you Alex,” I lie.

“You’re a horrible liar.”

“It’s over,” I say looking away from him.

“Meghan-”

“I said it’s over, please leave.”

“Is that what you really want?”

I look at him straight in the eyes, “yes, now leave.” I say one more time as I try to hold back the tears.

“I meant what I said,” he says as he stands up.

“I did too,” I lie again as he gets dressed.

“Bye,” he says and walks away.

I hear the front door close as a few tears escape from the corner of my eyes.

“I’m going to be okay,” I say, wishing I wasn’t lying to myself.

_______________________

I stare at the house where everything began to fall apart in my life, or so I had thought many years ago. Now staring at it gave me a sense of tranquility, maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t in New York. I wasn’t surrounded by all the chaos I had created.

“Meghan?” I hear Carmen’s surprised tone of voice.

I look at her and smile, “Hi, I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“No, I just didn’t expect to see you back here, after all you did tell me you where never coming back.”

“I know, I don’t think I ever imagined coming back.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.

Carmen stares at me unsure as to what to say.

“I guess I wanted to talk to somebody without being judged,” I say with a sigh knowing this had been a bad idea.

Who was I kidding, sure Carmen was my mother but we never did get along, we never truly had a real conversation, just phrases.

“Forget I was ever here,” I tell her and turn around.

If she knew what I had done to her favorite daughter, I knew she would never want to see my face ever again.

“Meghan, wait-” I hear her say with a bit of hesitation.

I turn around to look at her; she looks at me with a sympathetic expression. “You can talk to me.”

I shake my head, “if I did, you would hate me.”

“You’re my daughter, I could never hate you.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Try me.”

“You have to promise me something first.”

“Anything you want.”

“You can’t tell Ariana, or anybody else for that matter.”

“Why would it matter if I told Ariana, it’s not like you two talk to each other.”

“We’ve been trying to fix out relationship, and so far it’s been great but if she was ever to find out about this I don’t think she would ever want to talk or see me ever again.”

Carmen smiles, I knew she had been wishing for a long time for me and Ariana to finally get along with each other.

“I promise not to tell anybody, would you like to come inside?”

I nod and follow her into the house and then into the living room. I bite my lip as we sit on the couch.

I could feel my heart banging against my rib cage, and I could feel my nails digging into the skin of my palms. I was nervous and scared of telling Carmen all about Alex, but I had to let it out of my chest. I didn’t really know if she would keep her promise of not telling anybody but I had to take the risk and just trust her. I take in a deep breath and then exhale and begin to tell her everything.