Broken

Johnathan was still barely holding it all together and I knew that he thought, if I betrayed him, his whole world would be in complete disarray. This time, he wouldn’t be able to even begin to pick up the pieces.

Yet, for as much as I understood that, I also had a sense of pride as well. While I understood him not wanting to trust anyone else, I couldn’t understand how there wasn’t anything I could do to get him to trust me.

I knew I wasn’t going to betray his trust, no matter what happened to us. Yet, I needed Johnathan to believe it and he wasn’t giving me any opportunities to prove anything to him.

“Are you okay?” I finally heard him call from behind me.

“Yes,” I answered succinctly as my heart burned.

“Do you need to stop and rest?”

“No,” I insisted, “Apparently, the sooner we get there, the better.”

“Yeah, but we’re making good time. I would be okay with stopping for a while.”

“Why stop? To me, that sounds like more of a reason to keep going.”

“Oh…Okay. If you’re sure,” he answered, but I didn’t reply.

I simply forged ahead, without looking back.

Partially, I didn’t want to stop because I did want to get to our destination. When we made it to the station, I would be able to rest, without having a long journey still ahead. It would be then that I could finally, truly relax. However, my urgency was partly because I knew if we stopped, everything I was thinking would come spilling out and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

Before we parted ways, I hoped to be able to get my point across to him, but I wasn’t ready yet. I was still angry, and this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have while angry.

Again, we trudged along in silence, with Jake looking between us as we walked, obviously wondering, yet again, what was going on with us.

He must think we’re bipolar or something; making love one minute and giving one another the silent treatment the next.

This thought caused me to contemplate what it would be like if we lived together. Would we fight constantly, or would we be happier more than we would be miserable?

I assumed that we would probably find a balance, since we wouldn’t be constantly fighting to survive and if we were living together, Johnathan would’ve made his choice.

Considering what he told me about his ex-fiancée, I found it unlikely that he would be so indecisive one he finally took the plunge into a relationship with me.

The only thing we argue about is the fact that he doesn’t trust me and won’t give me a chance. If he was willing to try, things would surely be different. I decided, but a terrible thrust of anxiety hit my stomach as I realized that we probably would never know.

“We’re almost there,” he insisted eventually; his words dragging me out of my thoughts and back to a reality that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a part of.

“Good,” I responded coldly, continuing in the direction of the ranger’s station.

“Yeah, I thought so,” he insisted, and I looked back to see him grinning. His eyes were trained on me and in a strange way, I thought he might be regretting not talking to me.

Wishful thinking, I insisted to myself, though I contemplated starting a conversation with him, simply to see where it would go.

I knew that once we were at the station, there would be nothing more to say to him, with the way things were, than goodbye.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to him, and I thought that if I let him go now, I might never get the chance to speak to him again.

So, I turned around, in a desperate display, for the first time, showing him that I was crying and insisted, “Johnathan, I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”

He stopped short, staring at my face, before his eyes dropped down to the ground. His expression remained stoic, but his jaw tightened, and he drew in a deep breath. I waited for him to release it, hoping that he would speak, but when nothing came after the long, slow exhale, I decided to continue.

“Listen to me, please,” I insisted, watching his head turn up to me. He blinked, but didn’t move, so I took this as my cue to continue, “I want you in my life, Johnathan. I think that we have a connection and I don’t want to lose you. Last night, something happened, and you opened up to me. That gave me such a sense of accomplishment…”

“Why? Because you finally broke me down?” He snapped, but I didn’t allow him to commandeer this conversation.

“No, because I felt that you had started to trust me. I felt that I had helped you and that was something I had tried to do since I met you and realized that you needed help.”