Busted Lips and Lust-Bruised Hips

Amaya boarded the plane with a resolute air, determined not to look back across to the terminal where she knew Pete was still waiting with words withering on his lips. Instead, she took her seat with a firm grace that contradicted her trembling hands, clutching onto the arm rests to steady them as she did. She glanced out of her window at the runway beneath her in an attempt to occupy her mind and found herself smiling solemnly at how small the people looked through the glass; not even stretching as long as the fingers she curled into fists as she watched them. As her nails settled into her palm, she choked back her sigh and closed her eyes as the pressure pricked them with tears. When she opened them again, she contradicted her better judgement and let them stray freely over to the terminal, trying to tell herself that her heart always beat that irregularly as she did. She could picture Pete in her mind, stood at the window, watching the plane with a disheartened look. She knew his hands would be entwined in his hoodie, that he'd be frowning, that his Sidekick would be sorching his hip with the suggestion of ringing her. But she also knew that he wouldn't call - not with his thoughts as meshed as they were. He'd bide his time, sit through another night of arguments with Jeanae and call her when the pressure in his head reached its climax. She told herself it was probably for the best that she left when she did but her hands were still trembling and her heart beat in a disjointed rhythm as she pulled screen down over the window to block the terminal from her view.

Jeanae was sat on the couch when Pete finally got home with her hands puddled into knots in her lap. At the sound of the door opening, she raised her eyes expectantly but held back from moving, waiting anxiously instead for the sound of his footsteps. She lowered her eyes as they approached and, while he clouded the doorway, examined her hands with a faltering interest, pressing her lips together in an effort to get them to unlatch. As a silence formed between them, she occupied herself by counting the breaths she released and, as it continued, added to them the breaths she held as she waited for Pete to say something. Eventually, as the torture became too much, she lifted her eyes to meet his across their confrontation. He stood off-centre in the doorway, watching her with a look that was hard to describe. Still, she could recognise the anger, frustration and guilt making up the frame of it. It was just the crux of it that she couldn't define which unnerved her. She watched him clench and unclench his fists at his side a few times before lowering her gaze once again to her hands. "I'm sorry, ok?" she said sadly, "Let me just say that before you force me to. I'm sorry."

Pete let out the breath he must have been holding as he stepped into the room. "No you're not," he retorted, "You're just saying that because you know that's what I want to hear right now."

"That's not true," Jeanae snapped, her eyes flicking up laden with vengaence.

Pete faced her aggression with embittered bravery. "Of course it isn't," he said, "Because you'd never play cruel for no reason, would you?"

"Pete..." Jeanae started, her tone growing brittle as she drew his name out.

"Why do you have to do that? Why do you have to drive my fucking friends away?" Pete quizzed, his patience finally snapping at both ends.

"I didn't drive her away!" Jeanae insisted, standing up to make her point vivid, "She left by herself."

"Because of you! Because you developed some strange dislike to her for no reason," Pete explained, "Right now, she's kicking herself with guilt and you're stood here, the perfect picture of 'I couldn't care less'."

"I do care, Pete! More than your ego will ever give me credit for."

"Then why did you have to drive her away?"

"Because she's not your friend, Pete!" Jeanae exclaimed.

"Of course she is!" Pete argued.

"I don't mean it like that, Pete," Jeanae told him, exasperated.

"Well, what do you mean?"

"You can't seriously tell me you're that blind, Pete."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Pete asked, his face screwed up in angered confusion.

"She's more than a friend to you, Pete. Inches more than a friend."

"I don't get it," Pete said, stepping back from Jeanae and her suggestions.

"You do, you just don't want to admit it," Jeanae told him, stepping forward despite his retreat, "Stop kidding yourself for once. It's tragic that you do this all the time." She stepped forward once more, testing Pete's reaction while she did and trying to suppress her relief as his confusion kept him weighted to the same place. "You know it's true, Pete. Even if you don't want it to be."

"But she's..."

"Pete, stop fighting with yourself," Jeanae told him, her voice insistent as she stepped away from him, "Because you're gonna lose either way." She paused as she watched Pete's expression flounder restlessly between anger and thought. "You know, maybe this whole you, me thing isn't working." Pete's eyes flashed up rapidly, capturing Jeanae's with a question his lips forgot to ask in surprise. "You know I'm right. You worry about her more than you ever think about me. It's cheating both of us with the same lie."

"So you're just gonna give up on us?" Pete asked increduously.

"No, I'm giving you what your heart keeps saying what you want; your freedom," Jeanae corrected, "This whole thing is getting awkward with...people in the way." Stopping as she saw the venom in Pete's gaze, Jeanae raised her hands to silence him before he spoke. "That wasn't meant as a dig at her. It was a dig at us. Or what was meant to be us."

"You're finishing with me because of this?"

"No, Pete. I'm finishing with you because it never works. It's the same routine over again. We make up, start off sweet and then just end up as some sort of bitter aftertaste. It's not worth it."

"So that's it? You're leaving?" Pete asked, watching as Jeanae walked towards the door.

Turning around, Jeanae rested her hand against the door frame as she looked back at Pete with a pitying look. "Yes," she told him levely, "I am."

Pete sat on the couch, a mixture of regrets and I told you so's pressing against his temples that combined to create the perfect cocktail headache. He drooped his head onto his hands, shaking it as it fell, and worked on massaging the headache away with brutal fingertips. The cynical joker in his mind told him that he should have expected this, that it was just the beginning of his seven years' bad luck, but he didn't want to hear it or know what else Fate had planned for him. Instead, he glanced up at the ceiling and followed the sound of Jeanae's footsteps as they drifted across his bedroom, picturing her as she collecting the last of her belongings and left his house that little bit more hollow. In all honesty, he had come back with a rage-scorched heart but he only wanted a simple, genuine, apology waiting behind the door as he stepped in. Instead, he dragged his feet through another goodbye.

Jeanae's footsteps suddenly faltered in the middle of the room and Pete's eyes rested at that spot expectantly, hopefully, waiting for some kind of apology to sink through the floorboards. He knew every nerve-ending tingled with anger but he also knew that he didn't want her to leave this way. As she remained poised where she'd stopped, Pete glanced down at his hands, picturing the times when hers had been nestled against his tight enough to block out all air but, as he clenched his fists, he could still feel the texture of Amaya's pale skin against his palm and he sighed into that realisation. Life had been a lot less complicated without her around. There were still the feuds and angered silences but he had always managed to coax himself through with Jeanae behind him, smiling at his progression. And, sure enough, sometimes she grated down the last of his patience but she was the only person small enough to fit beneath his skin the way she did. Now that Amaya was around, he had to make room for two and he was sure he wasn't that expandable.

Pete's eyes rested on the two palms he had stretched out on top of his legs, almost as if each palm nursed one girl with eyes emblazoned with hope. He really didn't want to choose between them but he understood that the fractures beneath his feet would never heal unless he did. He swallowed hard as he curled one palm back tightly, pausing for a second to recover before pushing himself off the couch and heading upstairs.

Jeanae was sat on the edge of his bed when Pete reached his bedroom with her bag rested against her lap. Her body was rigid with the determination to leave but her expression was clouded with the hope that she wouldn't have to. She hadn't even heard Pete come upstairs and he took advantage of the situation, crossing the room in hurried steps and sitting on the bed behind her. "You don't have to do this," he said softly.

"I do," Jeanae argued in a weak voice as her hand travelled along the handle of her bag.

"What's it going to prove?" Pete asked, "You said yourself that we were meant to be together. Why else do we end up in this relationship every time we look around?"

"Because we're stubborn," Jeanae replied, "We're too lazy to look around for someone else."

"There is no someone else," Pete insisted, braving Jeanae's reaction and moving closer, "There's no one else I go to sleep with in my thoughts and wake up with in my daydreams."

"But she's so much better for you. I can see it in the way she understands everything you never say."

"I don't care. She doesn't fit beside me in this bed like you do." Pete slowly leant forward until his head rested against the back of Jeanae's, letting a few breaths trace down the back of her neck as he took in her scent. "Don't go," he repeated, "We can make it work this time. We can try harder and prove all this pain is worth it. Just. Stay."

"Pete..." Jeanae started, almost in warning, but her words lost their purpose as Pete's arms coiled around her waist. She could feel the heat of his desperation against her skin almost as intensely as his heartbeat beating against her spine with pleas. She squeezed her eyes shut against her emotions, letting her head fall back against Pete's shoulder as she did. As he pulled her tighter against him with perfect intent, she let out the breath she didn't know her lungs had been holding back and let her head fall forward. "I'm so going to regret this," she told him as his lips pressed relieved kisses into her neck.