Letting Go.

I stumbled. Staggering forward, I fell within moments into the mud, skidding along, landing on my knees at his feet. He extended a hand and I took it weakly, mumbling incoherently;

“Dan?” the first world that tricked from my lips.

“Sorry,”

“Yeah, I would be too.”

Before him, I’d never hit a person with such emotion. He was muddying enough; why would a few extra splahes hurt?

“I…You…” I pointed a finger in his face, “I thought you were dead. I…I…”

“I did it for you.”

“Don’t try it Dan, don’t come back and say that,” he got to his feet as I spoke, “Don’t try and act like nothing happened.”

“I needed time. I needed space and this was the only way I could get it without being labelled depressive…” he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Would a letter have killed? I turned away from him, “And you…you,” pointing at Teddy and Ali I tried to form my sentences, but the anger over powered me, “Why hurt me so badly?”

Dan made eye contact with me; “I could hardly come back with my mind so messed up; I lost my wife and my,” he paused, “her kid. I couldn’t come back to you like that; I had to know it was what I wanted.”

“Then how could we be?” My frontal lobe swelled with the prospect of tears, “How could we be together if you’re not sure!”

Leaning forward, he locked his lips onto mine, pressing his tongue into my cheek, his hand soothing the back of my hand, trying to stop my resistance. I didn’t want to be in the embrace, forcing his hands off my body.

“Don’t think we can pretend nothing happened.”

There was a silence in which Ali unleashed a cough that obviously had been building up for a while; the cold was never his friend. This thought distracted me for a mere moment before my mind was dragged back to Dan; how could someone fake his death for clarity? It made no sense and there was nothing rational I could pull from the embers.

His lips twitched as though he wanted to speak, but he was trying to think of the words so not to scare me further away from him, although he could have burst out swearing and proposing and I would not have thought any less of him; it was impossible to do so.

“Ed, please; I love you,” I could see the heartache in his eyes and the pain in his soul. Did it matter? Lifting a hand, I wiped the mud from my cheeks, blinking as my eyes cleaned themselves and I waited for the courage to appear from within; my mind was made up and he wasn’t going to like the decision.

“No, Dan. I just can’t. I haven’t got over you.”

That’s when I left.

That’s when I knew we could never go back.

Neither Dan, nor Ali, nor Teddy’s calls would make me stop; nothing could make me wait another moment