Tortured Hearts

Will’s P.O.V

Hanna had insisted I stay in the fake relationship after Alicia had found out and I protested at first, feeling more anger towards Hanna than I’d ever felt towards another person in nearly all my life. She had taken away the most precious thing from me.
But who was I kidding? When I lay awake night after night, thinking of all that had occurred, did I try to convince myself it wasn’t my fault? No, because it was my entire fault. No matter how I tried to lay the whole blame onto Hanna, I was a participating member to the ‘relationship’, no matter how fake it had seemed at the time.
I’d cheated on Alicia, but I wasn’t even man enough to admit it wasn’t down to some game that some little bitch was playing with me. It was because I wasn’t courageous enough to stand up to her and to tell her that I was the one calling the shots and that I wasn’t interested in her advances. Maybe if I’d have channelled half of the fire I was gathering now in the beginning, Hanna wouldn’t have even dared to test me like she had done.
And my mind kept snagging on these points over and over until I realised that I couldn’t do anything now. No amount of grovelling or apologising would bring Alicia back into my arms and no amount of hatred would erase what I’d done with Hanna. I just had to accept that I’d done something wrong and that I would not do the same again. I knew that none of that would remove even half of Alicia’s pain, but it helped me to believe that maybe I could become a stronger person from all that happened.
I resolved to tell Hanna that I wanted it all to end between her and I. We were through and no amount of her blackmailing would prevent me from finally doing what I knew was right. I had done my moping and was finished with sitting in my room, staring at the ceiling and wondering whether if I had done this or that, would Alicia be still seeing me the way she used to.
The next afternoon after practice, I knocked on Hanna’s door and waited for her to open it. It took a few minutes before she opened it and I half-expected for her to be out from the time she left me stood there.
From the moment she opened the door, I knew something was wrong. Call me an insensitive bastard, but my first thought was that I severely hoped she wasn’t about to tell me she was pregnant. Now that really would screw my life into the ground.
“What do you want?” she asked, wiping some of the wet tear-trails off her cheeks with her sleeve. It was almost as though she was the one wronged here.
“I…” I faltered at whether I should tell her what I wanted to say or whether to ask her what was wrong. The more sympathetic side of me won out. “What’s wrong?”
“Like you care,” she replied, her eyes beginning to water again.
“Well, let’s pretend I do,” I said with a soft sigh, knowing I was being nice to the devil intentionally.
She looked up at me for a few silent moments before saying, “People are branding me a slut.”
I looked at her with a shocked expression. Shocked that she didn’t understand why. “Well, Hanna, you can’t exactly expect anything less. You know what you are.”
“I am not a slut!” she practically screamed at me. “You don’t understand, you’re a guy. I didn’t sleep with the whole football team or go around asking for it from strangers. Just because I slept with a taken guy doesn’t mean I’m a slut.”
“Well if I remember correctly, you did throw yourself at me. Oh, and let’s not forget, blackmailed me into sleeping with you. Which, I might add, I protested about.” My tone took on a scathing, sarcastic side that she deserved to have served up to her.
She stared at me before saying, “Sure, I did things that I probably shouldn’t. But why does that make me a slut? Are you a slut, William?” She called me by my full name, obviously trying to get a rise out of me.
“No. But you can’t expect people to think you’re not what you prove to be.”
“You men are all the same,” she spat. “Every one of you, sleeping with whatever girl comes your way but then when your girl does the same, you brand her a slut. It’s not fucking fair.”
“What’s not fair is what you did to Alicia and me!” I yelled into her face, making her cringe and flinch. Good, she needed to see me angry.
“You didn’t have to,” she retorted, suddenly becoming defensive. “You could have prevented it if you really wanted to. But, let’s face it, you wanted it. You wanted it underneath it all. Don’t deny it.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I hissed, stepping forward into her room and crowding her, making her feel threatened just because I wanted to cause her pain like she’d done to me.
“You can walk right out of here today and never speak to me again,” she stated, looking up at me with anger in her eyes instead of fear, “But we both know there’s something here you can’t escape from.”
“Yes, that you’re blackmailing me,” I laughed humourlessly.
“No. It’s called chemistry,” she replied, her hands tracing patterns idly over my chest. I grasped her hands and threw them off, making her stop whatever mind games she was starting up again.
“Stop it, Hanna. I mean it. I’m through with this shit.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she said, tears spilling up over her eyes and falling down her face. “You feel the attraction as well.”
I ignored her and left to enter my room alone. She was being a bitch again, I tried to reason. Whatever she felt was purely one-sided and was used to manipulate me. But something questioned this and I swore out loud as I realised that my chest still tingled from where she’d touched. Yes, I thought she was a slut. And yes, I hated that she was playing a game with me. But there were other sides of Hanna that I’d caught glimpses of, and those glimpses somehow gave me a sick hope that there was something more to just the shallow exterior. Somewhere inside her rough outer edges, there was a person I could grow to like. This was by far the scariest realisation I had had about Hanna.

The next morning there was a knock at my door that woke me up. Looking at my clock, I groaned as I realised I’d missed my gym session already. It was already past nine and I’d overslept majorly. Throwing on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that was lying on my floor, I went to the door.
Hanna greeted me with a sceptical once over, her eyes taking in my dishevelled appearance before she said, “This is a new look. Kind of dirty and… yes, definitely undesirable.” She was back to her old self, I decided.
“What do you want, Hanna?” I was bored with her games.
“Well I wanted to see whether you’d come on a walk with me. I bought us some food for a picnic and I’ve planned a perfect walk.” I was about to tell her where she could shove her stupid picnic basket when I saw a look of vulnerability in her usually devious blue eyes. Was she scared of rejection? That could only mean I was being given a choice. Now, any other guy might have slammed the door right in her face, but I saw something in her uncertainty that created a pause before I answered.
“Why?” I asked and she shrugged.
“I know I’ve done things I’m not proud of and I need to apologise.” She was being sincere and it was killing me in the sense that my hatred was beginning to wane.
“Will you wait whilst I get changed?” I asked, looking down at my sweats and realising it wasn’t a get-up I’d be proud of being seen in out of my room.
She brightened up at my response and nodded her head enthusiastically. I shut my door to her and turned around, leaning hard against it. What was I doing? I squeezed my eyes shut and wished I’d had the strength to break her like she’d been breaking me. There I went again, kidding myself that this wasn’t my fault. Get a grip, Will.
I peeled myself from the door and threw my clothes into the laundry hamper before taking a quick shower. I then dressed in a pair of my older, more worn jeans and a white t-shirt. Taking a glance through my window, I saw that the weather was warm and bright, so I grabbed my sunglasses and took a deep breath before joining Hanna in the hallway.
“You look much better,” she commented as we started walking out of the building.
“I didn’t ask for your approval,” I shot back, hating myself for slightly revelling in the way she was looking at me.
“Well you have it anyway,” she replied, ignoring the harshness of my words.
We walked outside in the sun and I wore my sunglasses. Not only did they protect my eyes, but I hoped they stopped anyone from recognising me; and by ‘anyone’, I meant Alicia’s friends. I couldn’t deal with a run-in with any of them. After all, how much would she have told them? None of that mattered. I sighed heavily as we carried on walking towards a more natural part of the city.
The sun was scattered by the trees by the time we made it to the destination Hanna had planned for us. She pulled out a blanket and threw it on the floor at the bottom of a thick oak tree. I sat with her and sighed as I thought of the times I’d spent dating Alicia.
“Look, I have no business telling you what to do, but I think it would be better if you decided not to mope.” Hanna said boldly as she placed food down on the blanket between us, creating a barrier with food.
I stared hard at her until her newly meek eyes met mine. “You’re right.” She smiled but it quickly faded when I added, “It is none of your business. And frankly, you’ve been telling me what I can and can’t do for months now. I’ve had enough.”
“I… I’m sorry it seems that way.”
“Seems?” I fumed and then took a deep breath to calm myself and my pounding heart. “What did you bring me out here for really?”
“I…I wanted to apologise because…” she trailed off again, her confidence seeming to wane now Alicia had broken up with me.
“Because?” I questioned, not letting my harsh stare drop as she flushed under my gaze.
“I… it’s silly. I don’t want to tell you because you’ll only laugh at me.”
“Well spit it out and give me some humour.”
She swallowed hard, closing her eyes before meeting my eyes. “I wanted to make things up to you because I…I love you.”
“Love?” I laughed bitterly, almost frightened by her definition of love. “If you believe blackmail, torment and sexual abuse are all a part of love, then you are one messed up little girl.” I was aware I was being cruel, but I didn’t realise she’d begun crying until she let out a sob with my last words. Her shoulders were shaking and tears rained down until her face became swollen and pink.
I sat silently until her sobs became loud enough to stir something inside of me. I felt bad for making her cry; what self-respecting guy wouldn’t? Hell, next I’d be becoming a woman-beater.
I sighed and leaned across the picnic to touch her shoulder, rubbing it slightly. I hated myself for making her cry and I hated myself for having to apologise, but I had no other choice. “Hanna, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“No…I u-understand you don’t c-care. I just thought I should t-tell you.” She still thought she loved me, then.
“You’re being serious, aren’t you?”
She looked up at me with bloodshot eyes, giving me a confused expression. “Of course.”
I looked away, up to the trees as I wondered whether she could even be capable of love. “What did you think you were achieving, Hanna?” I had to ask, even if I didn’t want to hear the answer.
She shrugged, “I hoped that now you and Alicia are finished, you could learn to love me in return, without me trying to force your affection.”
“You think I could love you after all you’ve put me through?” I asked and her eyes filled with tears.
“I hoped you could.” Maybe I could. The question was whether I could live with myself if I ever could learn to love someone so manipulative. Or more importantly, whether I was already beginning to feel a soft spot for the blonde sat across from me. Whatever I did, I was already damned anyway.