Heartbreak Warfare

“Do you love me or not?”

The moment the words escaped his lips, Logan wished he could take them back.

As she stood in the doorway, her lips trembled as she tried to form the words that he wanted to hear, just to make between them okay. The look in her deep brown eyes was indescribable, like she couldn’t process the words he was saying or why he was angry with her.

That was the ways things had always been. Logan was constantly telling her he loved her, and Kandi never could find the right response. She wasn’t going to tell him the words until she was sure there was truth in them.

Until that moment, Logan had been perfectly content with her reasons, but in the moment, he was frustrated. Frustrated with her but more frustrated with himself, and that was when he said the things he knew he should’ve kept below the surface.

He knew she loved him; he didn’t need the words. He could see it written all over her face as she stood there, her eyes focused on the floor, a stray droplet trickling from the corner of her eye and down her cheekbone.

Just at the moment he expected her to fall apart, she pulled herself together. As she inhaled deeply, her shoulders squared, her spine straightened, and she spun around on her heels, strutting into the kitchen.

From his spot at the edge of the bed, he could see her narrow her eyes at him defiantly as she grabbed the coffee pot form the counter and chucked it against the tile floor. The sound of glass breaking was almost deafening, intensified by the mixture of anger and anxiety coursing through Logan’s body.

It was then that Logan shut down and his pride took over.

“So this is all just a game to you?” he yelled, standing up and walking towards the doorway where she’d just stood.

Kandi refused to say a word. The only thing Logan heard was the door slam as she stormed out of the apartment.

He stood in the doorway, his shoulders slumped as his eyes drifted from the shards of broken glass on the floor to the closed door. A part of him wanted to go after her, to make sure she was okay, but he couldn’t bring himself to move from that spot.

She’d never let him see her cry. She was just too stubborn to let him know that he had that power over her.

But he knew her. When you’re around someone for so long, you begin to fall into their routines, recognize their patterns, and though Kandi pretended that she didn’t need him, he knew she did. As independent as she tried to be, sometimes she needed to be rescued, and this was one of those times. And Logan knew she was at the other side of that door, hunched down in the corner of the hallway breaking down. All he had to do was tread across the two rooms that separated them and he’d be at her side, but he couldn’t bring himself to budge.

He knew she needed rescuing, but he was no knight in shining armor, and a part of him needed saving itself.

The pieces of himself lie scattered like the shards of glass on the floor, and he needed her to pick them back up and make him whole again.

And he wouldn’t even ask her to say the words he needed to hear because he needed her more than he needed three measly words.