Toxic (18+)

26 June 2021 "No, I'm done! I'm done this time for good! Just let me be." I pushed his reaching hand away from me, not caring about the hurt expression on his face.  "Four years and gone in an instant, huh? I love you, Ari, don't do this." He looked at me with a devastating face and I really didn't have a clue what I could have done to make it all better.  "It's over for me. I'm so sorry. I tried too, you know. I did give it my all." I didn't know if I really did but this just wasn't it for me. We were moving to different countries, I wasn't sure how long I could have even kept up with this pretense anymore.  I stopped playing with my fingers and made and looked up at him to find him directly looking at me with such intensity on his face. It was almost like he was trying to tell me that he isn't letting me go, he isn't letting us go.  "Stop. Don't look at me that way. I'm not staying Ryan. Not this time." I pulled my suitcase from the bed to the ground and I could feel pain and a hollowness growing in my chest, I almost felt like I was choking on it.  Then all of it happened too sudden for me to even realize. I was pushed back and I was free-falling until I hit the bed on my back. "You really want to let me go? I mean nothing to you, huh?" He was on top of me in no time, I could feel his chest pressing against mine and his body completely smothering me below his. I could start feeling my heart beating a thousand beats a second like every time he did this to me.  "Stop it!" I protested, trying to push him away from me when he crashed his lips to mine. I didn't open up for a while but he persisted and I couldn't have done anything but kiss him back. He wasn't bad in bed, he knew it. And we never really were able to resist each other in the bedroom.  Hell, sometimes when I thought back, I believed that being good in bed was what kept this relationship going for so long. I didn't even know that I was a squirter before I met him. And with him, I didn't know how not to squirt.  We kissed each other with such a need and no matter how much my brain begged me to give in to reason, I followed my libido with blond faith, yet again.  It was funny how I never was able to leave him and how he usually convinced me to stay back with s*x, with academics, using my dependence on him as a weapon. It was toxic and he knew it and yet we were here, in my bed, making out like our lives depended on it.  And I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want this at all. Some part of me did want it, some part of me enjoyed the toxicity of it all.  "Stay, Ari, stay." He whispered between kisses, trying to make eye contact with me and I was doing everything in my power to avoid his eyes.  All of a sudden, he grabbed my face with one of his hands, making me look at him forcefully while he kissed me and I was just so gone in that instant, I almost forgot anything about the fight, about leaving him.  This is what he did best, making me so weak that I even forget if there is something wrong with us, everything seems so intense and perfect with him but that intensity almost always dies in a few days when he gets back to his normal self and I have nothing but loneliness surrounding me.  I looked at him at that instant, boldening my heart to a stone, and spoke the words which needed to come out, just needed to get this off from my chest.  "I'm not staying. I might just stay in your bed right now but as soon as this is done, I'm leaving Ryan." It was at that moment that he stopped kissing me.  It was a moment of realization for him and I could see it on his face, how his eyes turned glossy, how he thought of fighting it, and then I saw the fight leaving his body.  "You're really leaving." He said to himself more than he said it to me. I didn't reply, I didn't really need to, he knew the answer to that.  It was in that instant that he pushed himself off of me, he stood to the side, looked at me once, faced backward, and moved towards the window.  He didn't look back as I got up from the bed and adjusted my dress. I wanted to say something to make it all better but I knew there was nothing that could be said, it only would have made it worse.  "I'm sorry Ry, I really am."  My eyes were teary, my voice was small but neither any tears left my eyes nor did I stutter while speaking.  He didn't turn back. It seemed all inevitable now. Some relationships are doomed from the start, we knew it. We knew it from the start but nothing we could have done could have changed the outcome and yet we strung each other along for four years, for our entire college lives.  The concept of college sweethearts almost sounds amusing to me now. How can two completely different people moving into two completely different career worlds end up together for a happily ever after? It all sounds so childish and yet we were into this idea for so long, imagining and reimagining our future together for so long now. It almost felt like I've lived it with him already.  "You are not sorry. You never were.  Just leave and don't ever come back." He didn't look at me while saying this, I didn't sense any emotion, all I could hear were his words and how empty and indifferent they sounded.  I dragged my suitcase behind me, opened the door. I thought of looking back at him once, just to see if he was looking at me but resisted myself at the last moment. I left his apartment, not banging the door like the million times I have done before, for the first time, I gently closed it behind me and quietly left.  This wasn't a fight anymore, there really was no coming back.                                                           ______________________________________