Red Dress Club: Not Yet

Prompt: This week we’d like you to explore romantic heartbreak. For you fiction writers, here’s a chance to really delve into the psyche of your character. For you non-fiction folk, well, maybe it’s into your psyche you must delve. We all remember that first love, just like we all remember when our hearts broke for the first time. This is fiction.

There was something on my chest. A gargantuan, invisible demon was standing on my chest, it seemed. I could not even take a shallow breathe; the weight of the words fell on me like body blows.

My focus became pinpointed on the idea that I needed. To. Breathe. I would be okay if I could breathe.

"...and I think that this is something that I need to do, for myself. You just don't fulfill my needs anymore. Candace really gets me. She anticipates my wants and she brings them to me. You won't. I will come back tomorrow to get my things, when you aren't here. I can't even stand to look at you anymore. Candace is waiting for me in the car." Scott looked at me, as if he were expecting something.

That angry demon was reaching into my chest and wrapping their hands around my heart. Squeezing. I could feel claws sinking into me. I could not form a coherent thought, so I simply stared, my eyes wide with shock. My eyes were starting to tear from the pain.

Not yet.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Scott's face took on a familiar sneer. He stepped closer.

"Hello! I am breaking up with you! Don't you get it? Don't you have anything to say?"

The patronizing tone snapped me upright, my shoulders back, my chin high. Difficult to manage with claws deeply embedded in my chest, but I did it. I stood tall, even though I felt like crumpling to the floor.

Not yet.

"Well?" another sneer at me, as if I were too stupid to understand, when I understood all too well.

Demon claws squeezed ever tighter.

Not yet.

I walked to the front door and opened it, pretending calm. I could see Scott's Jeep at the curb, a silhouette sitting in the passenger seat.

I should have been angry. I should have yelled, thrown things, punched someone in the face. Instead, I stood there at the open door and showed no reaction at all. I inclined my head toward the door and tried to keep myself breathing, even as my chest seemed to constrict.

Not yet.

"I am so out of here." Scott walked out of my life, disgusted with my silence. I watched him drive off with a squeal of tires. As I locked the door, I was finally able to take that breath I'd been wanting.

Now.

Those waiting claws ripped into my heart with the malice of the past ten minutes. I felt as though my heart had been eviscerated, yet it was still beating. The pain threw me to the floor, and my numbed reactions now came spilling out of me, an avalanche of anger, fear, hurt. As I lay there, crying, I could finally speak, and I just needed to say the words.

"Don't go."