Breaking Hearts Has Never Looked So Cool

Everything around me dissolved, and the only action I could think of carrying out was cutting a final piece of cucumber. I pushed my arm down, only to be met with an excruciating pain in my thumb to match the pain in my heart.

Red rivers of blood steadily flowed over the white chopping board I was using. The throbbing pain in my thumb was oddly satisfying, serving the purpose of channelling my emotional turmoil. I glanced down and saw a deep cut in the scant flesh, but aside from that my thumb was fully intact so I decided to just leave it. There were more pressing things in my mind, screaming out from inside me and I didn’t know what to let out first.

I wanted to scream and yell blue murder and throw Annabelle out, physically ejecting her from my presence; I wanted to make her hurt like how I was hurting, and I wanted to know why, where and how the calamity had happened.

The more rational part of me won, and with my whole body shaking, I began to make an attempt at speaking.

“You slept with Gerard?” I asked first off. I needed to hear her confess it, to be told properly that that was the truth to even take it in properly.

Annabelle had tears in her eyes that were spilling out and running down her face at a rapid pace. “You’re bleeding,” she sobbed, “let me help you,”

“If you want to help me you’ll answer my question,” I replied dangerously,

“I did,” confessed Annabelle, hanging her head.

She was only reiterating what she had just told me, but still it hit me like a particularly heavy thunderbolt and I dropped the bloody knife that was still in my hand to the floor with a clatter that disturbed the heavily awkward silence viciously.

“It was only one time,” Annabelle started to say in supplication.

I closed my eyes, mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of her feeble excuses that in reality excused nothing.

“And,” she continued, “We were both completely drunk,”

“When?” I asked simply, finally starting to realise the true extent of the pain in my thumb. Without even thinking, I crossed the room to run cold water over the wound in a vain attempt to lessen the searing agony.

Annabelle made an odd move as if to assist me somehow, but then stopped, apparently realising that I did not want to be within a metre of her.

“About a month ago, when you guys had that huge fight,” she sobbed.

I couldn’t understand why she was crying more than I was. My pain seemed to be beyond tears, I was just numb and broken all over.

I let out an ironic laugh, withdrawing my still excruciating thumb from the flow of the tap water. It all made so much sense now. Everything was falling into place. He had been able to get to my house so quickly the morning after our first and only fight because he had been at Annabelle’s. Their sordid union must have been the reason why he was so distressed and worried about losing me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked raspily, tears finally finding their way to my eyes,

“Because we wanted to protect you,” pleaded Annabelle, “it didn’t mean anything, it was just stupid, drunken sex and neither of us wanted to wreck our relationships over it!”

“So Mikey doesn’t know then?” I asked, only just realising that there was another person to be devastated in the whole messy situation.

“I told him this morning,” cried Annabelle, “but I couldn’t bring myself to mention the...” her hand automatically sprang to her stomach.

Being reminded of the gestating child that could have been my boyfriend’s made me snap.

“Get out,” I said nastily,

“Wh-what?” replied Annabelle, clearly thinking that she had worn me down a little,

“I never want to see your face again,” I spat, and then I walked out of the kitchen to locate a first aid box so that I could fix my thumb.

Soon it was bandaged up, but the pain in my heart was not quite so easily mended.

I screamed violently into a cushion but it didn’t help; I needed to talk to someone who would listen to me and understand. I considered calling Gerard, but the thought of his face caused the wound to rip open again, so I tore out of the house without even thinking, with an inherent knowledge of who I was going to see.

It took me 10 minutes to sprint there, and when I arrived I was heaving, half with the strain of my journey, half with the tears I was sobbing out. I thumped the door as hard as I could, putting the weight of my whole body into it.

As I waited for an answer, I took a moment to check the driveway. To my relief, Gerard’s car wasn’t there. There was still no response after a few more minutes, so I kept knocking laboriously.

After I got completely fed up of continually banging on the door, I tried opening it. It swung open easily, and I walked inside, unnerved by the eerie silence that resounded around the house.

“Hello?” I called out cautiously, my voice still half wracked with sobs.

There was no response, so I ventured tentatively up the stairs. As I advanced higher up the stairs, I heard a quiet snuffling sound.

“Mikey?” I called out softly, “is that you?”
There was no response, so I carried on going until I was level with the door to Mikey’s room.

“Can I come in?” I asked, knocking lightly.

“Yes,” came Mikey’s slightly muffled voice from within.

He looked dreadful. His eyes were red and puffy, and there were tear tracks all over his cheeks. The covers of his bed were rumpled up, which told me that he had been curled up there sobbing for hours.

“She told you then?” asked Mikey, his voice coming out more harshly than I had expected it to.

He was eyeing my waterlogged face as he spoke, worry creasing his brow.

“Yes,” I responded, “but she didn’t even tell you the whole story,”

Mikey’s face blanched even more, and he patted the spot next to him on his bed, “what is it?” he asked grimly,

I didn’t know if I would be able to say the words out loud, it was too much to bear. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as I whispered “she’s pregnant” in a strangled voice.

I expected Mikey to break down, to cry, and to completely crumple. I thought that I was going to need to assume the comforting role and postpone my own tears for later.

It turned out, however, that I was totally wrong.

“What?” Mikey half-yelled, his body stiffening,

I dissolved into tears and he put his tense arm around me,
“I’ve had it with that bitch,” he said gruffly, “I can’t deal with any more of her crap,”

I tried to articulate a response, but I couldn’t get any words out so I just sobbed a little louder.

“Shh,” said Mikey gently, “don’t cry over them, they’re not worth it,”

I managed to control myself, hiccupping slightly and drawing in shallow, shuddering breaths.

“They’re not good enough for us,” said Mikey said firmly, “we shouldn’t be upset, we should be angry,”
I made an indistinct noise, barely able to contemplate anything but the immense pain I was feeling.

“Don’t you just want to get back at them?”
I sat up a little more independently instead of leaning on Mikey’s shoulder, “I guess,” I said quietly.
I couldn’t help but imagine the vindictive pleasure I might feel if I upset Gerard in some way, so that he could understand how much pain he had put me through.
I was lost in those thoughts when Mikey spontaneously kissed me on the lips.

At first I pulled away in abject surprise, because it felt so odd having Mikey’s lips pressed urgently to mine like that.

“What are you doing?” I asked, painfully aware that he had placed both of his hands firmly around my waist, “isn’t this just going to make everything more complicated?”

He didn’t say a word, but just persisted in his fierce kissing, which made me feel a little weak in the knees. It was only when he pushed me down so that he was on top of me that I came to my senses.

“Mikey,” I said, hoping that I would get his attention,

“I know,” he replied, apparently mistaking my plaintive call for a moan of pleasure, “you’re so much hotter than Annabelle,”

I felt slightly mollified as he said this, running his hands along me, but I pushed him off nevertheless.

“We can’t do this,” I told him miserably, “It’s just-“

“I understand,” sighed Mikey, “two wrongs don’t make a right,”

I nodded meekly, wishing silently that things would magically turn out to be less complicated.

“Mikey?” the sound of a different male voice that ripped me apart permeated the room.

“It’s Gerard,” whispered Mikey,

“I know,” I replied, squeezing his hand, trying to force my tears back into submission.

The door swung open. Seeing Gerard in the flesh was worse than I had ever expected it. I was torn between screaming at him and hitting him and running away.

Mikey stood up.

“Don’t even speak to me,” he said in a dangerous voice, giving Gerard a look that could kill before walking out of the door. Before he shut it with a final snap, he gave me a supportive, vaguely encouraging look that instilled very little courage in me.

Gerard walked over to sit next to me where Mikey had been originally.

It was just us, alone, and I didn’t know what on earth to say.