CHAPTER TWO:
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"Oh, our fire died last winter
All of the shouting blew it out
You know I could live without or with you
But I might like having you about."

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I am not sure precisely when it happened, or how exactly, but somehow, somewhere, we lost our spark. We lost ourselves among the chaos of the arguments, the shouting and the overwhelming anger we felt towards one another. I know I only have myself to blame. Self-preservation rendered me powerless and unable to fix things. I completely shut him out and treated him as if he were a stranger. But, I think I might like having him about. I know that he has every right to doubt me and our relationship. I hope I can show him I'm trying.

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Many things crossed Amara's mind during her drive to work. Absorbed in her thoughts, she didn't realise she had been sat in the car part for twenty minutes. Throughout their relationship, they had experienced peaks and troughs, as did any couple. But, her thoughts were always brought back to the strain that progressively built up after each argument. The fire that had once burned so strongly had burnt out, leaving a decaying pile of ashes. Finally, Amara turned off her engine and stepped out of her car with her heart feeling awfully heavy while analysing the ramifications of their arguing. Both of them were left feeling lost and an overwhelming sense of disappointment that slowly eroded them away to nothing.

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No matter how hard she tried, Amara found that she often could not remember when the arguments had started or what they were about. Maybe that didn't matter. After all, the reason for their arguments paled in comparison to the destruction that followed their award-winning shouting matches. This is what she considered throughout most of her day at work sat at her desk. Her usually work consumed self was sitting at her desk, staring at a blank word document. Amara's mind was consumed with questioning why the catalyst to their arguments was so frequently forgotten as soon as the shouting began. The pair of them became so achingly caught up in their own world of anger and pain. Horrified, she sat in her padded chair at work, heart pounding with fear. Her mind was so consistently taken up by Devan, that she was having trouble getting her job done, something she had never before experienced before in her entire life. She didn't like it.

Remembering the carnage of rubble crumbling around her that was their relationship, her eyes welled, and tears pricked the very corner of her eyes. All that remained when the storm had died down was the massacre of their love.

While she was sat fiddling with her pen in a meeting, her mind started to wander, and she began to understand that arguing had become a dominant addiction for the two. They could identify that once they began arguing, they just couldn't seem to stop, no matter how desperately they tried and how often they fiercely prayed they could. Perhaps they were cursed. They were undoubtedly hopeless and completely adrift. As she sat there, preoccupied with memories. Broken. She felt entirely broken at the thought that, previously, whenever they'd felt this way, they would have gone to each other to seek comfort. Now that was over.

She had been deep in thought and distracted all day. A few hours after her meeting, on her way home, she recalled a few particular phrases that had struck her during their most recent argument.
He had begged her, pleaded with her.

"Please just let me in! You're shutting me out, and I can't stop it and you can't either! It's what killed us!" The pure bitterness and heartache were evident in his tone and in the words that he spoke. He was begging for her to stop shutting him out. It was pointless. She yearned to let her guard down. She just couldn't. Her mind was shrouded in the blinding desire to please knock those walls down.

Her reply was: "Why should I when I know you have no faith in us?! You don't trust me, so why should I trust you?! I'll get hurt!" she agonisingly yearned to know why he couldn't trust her. Thinking back on it as she drove, she realised that it was a combination of her shutting him out as he simultaneously lost hope that had destroyed them. It was her fault.

Amara recalled his response to her asking this; Devan told her that it was simply impossible for him to trust their relationship if it doesn't exist anymore. She truly loathed to admit it to herself, but her heart shattered into pieces when he had he told her this. Even so, she wasn't surprised. Not in the slightest, because she thought so too. What she hadn't thought of, however, was that the torturous pain that she felt in that moment meant that she cared. She cared. That was a start.

During every single one of their arguments, something hurtful was said to the other. It always came back to her defence mechanisms kicking into place, pushing him away, and his crippling doubt of their relationship and any hope of a future together.

If he was frank with himself, he had to admit that he only ever brought any of it up because he was hurt and he was sure she knew that. He was aware that it has always been in her nature to push people away, and he was willing to deal with that. Yet he could never be prepared for the suffocating pain that he felt when she pushed him away after letting him in for a glorious short while.

They'd argue about anything, from what they were going to have for dinner, to her job and how much time she spends working. No matter how insignificant the issue was at the start, it always escalated and became a much larger problem.

But after that day where she first decided to change, she was starting to think about this and realise that, to fix their relationship, they needed to try and let things go, to let disagreements go. They knew that they could not afford to let things continue as they were because, soon, there would be nothing left of their relationship to fix.

Despite this, while Amara drove home, she worried that they had fallen out of love to the extent where they would not be able to love each other again. All she knew was that that, even if she had moved on enough to not need him anymore, she missed him and wanted to be with him. Her heart ached while it pounded in her chest whenever she'd think back to the happiest moments of their relationship. It was the small things that they both enjoyed. Spending time having dinner at home, watching Netflix together on the sofa as they relaxed and caught each other up about their lengthy day at work.

After the first morning that she switched around their usual roles with him and they decided that they would take it in turns to make each other breakfast.

This was when things started to look up for them, at least it seemed that way in the morning. Just a few minutes away from home, she thought about how they had started taking it in turns to make breakfast in the morning, talking and making the most of their time together. Occasionally, they even started spending more time together in the afternoon or the evening.

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Soon she arrived home and walked through the door and hung up her coat while kicking her shoes off. Devan greeted her at the door with a small smile etched on his face, dressed in jeans and a shirt, a smart but casual outfit to show he had put some thought into every aspect of their evening.
He took her hand gently in his and led her to the dining room, where he had made a romantic dinner for them to enjoy together. Candles were burning on the table instead of lights, giving the room a subtle smell of fresh linen and a soft glow to the room, creating a more romantic and relaxing atmosphere for them to enjoy.

"What's all this D?" she asked with a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips as he pulled the chair out for her to take a seat. They simultaneously took a seat as he replied.

"I figured you've probably had a long day of meetings and paperwork, so I decided to make dinner for you so you can relax," he told her while pouring her a glass of wine and grinning at her. It had been a while since they had a romantic meal together and it was a truly wonderful surprise. His efforts reminded him of a time,
not long ago, when he decided to try and treat her to a candlelit dinner at home, however, he was left waiting, checking the time every couple of minutes, and after she still hadn't returned home an hour after he expected her, he gave up and cleared the candles away and ate alone, hurt and angry that she was too busy at work to spend time with him.

However, she was also reminded of a similar time. Not long after he was left waiting for her, she too was left waiting. She decided to have a couples movie night with him and made popcorn and laid out movies to binge-watch, but he never came home that night. The next morning she found out that he had stayed over with friends after a night out. She was furious, unaware she had left him in a similar situation not long before.

One morning, after the morning where things changed, he got lost in his thoughts, and he decided that he would put the past aside and try again. He figured that she was putting more effort in so he could too. To him, his hard work had paid off as soon as she took a bite of the meal that he spent hours preparing. His smile widened as she made satisfied noise as she quickly dug into her meal, clearly enjoying every mouthful.

"This is delicious," she told him, to which he smiled in return. "Thank you for doing this, it's a wonderful surprise," she added with something resembling affection glinting in her eyes.

He simply smiled and replied,
"You're welcome A, it was fun... and worth it," she smiled warmly at his response before speaking up again.

"You were right by the way; I did have a hard and tiring day of meetings and paperwork," she told him, ignoring the fact that he absorbed her mind throughout it all. He grinned like a little boy in the knowledge that he was right.

"And yet I guarantee you still loved it right?" he asked with a hint of pride lacing his tone. A smile formed on her lips at this, and she nodded her head while eating. He couldn't hide the fact that he was proud of her for following her dreams and owned her own, successful company.

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But not everything can change overnight, and old habits die hard. So, after an hour of eating, talking and cleaning the dishes, a disagreement soon arose and reared its ugly head.

"I wish we'd done this sooner," he spoke up with a small sigh.

"So do I," she replied rather casually, not looking at him and instead focusing on a nail she had chipped while at work.

"Do you?" he asked with an accusatory tone in his voice, causing her to freeze momentarily before looking at him.

"Of course I do," she replied, slightly hurt that he'd assume otherwise, but she knew that it was a fair thing to say, given the state that their relationship had been in during the past few months.

"Well why didn't you?" he questioned, once again seeming slightly irked and accusatory.

"I had to work; you know that," she responded as she looked at him, beginning to get slightly irritated.

"Of course you did. Everything is about work," he said with a slight roll of his eyes. While she usually would've scoffed and rolled her eyes in return, instead, she decided to take a deep breath and look him in the eyes.

"I'm sorry," she started without taking her eyes off him. "I know I was wrapped up in work that I neglected us. I'm trying to make it up," she told him gently, silently pleading for him to believe her and let the matter drop.
He looked at her rather taken aback by her conceding so quickly as, typically, it would've turned into a full-blown shouting match by now. He was unnecessarily prepared to bite back, and he was pleasantly surprised that he found no need to. Instead, he nodded and smiled a little, feeling guilty that he caused the slight tinge of hurt that was present in her blue eyes.

"Sorry," he told her rather quietly without meeting her eyes. She smiled softly in return before speaking up again.

"That's okay. It was a fair thing to say given the past few months," she told him with a small, sad smile. He nodded once more and shot her a little smile back before holding a hand out to her. She took his hand, and he gently pulled her up and led her over to the sofa.

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It was this moment, feeling his hand in hers again, that she realised that maybe having him around would be better than being alone. She realised that she genuinely had missed him, more than she knew. She was perfectly aware that she no longer needed him like she needed air to breathe as she had done once, that she'd be perfectly fine and happy without him, but it was the first time in a while that she had felt a sense of warmth flow over when she held his hand.

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I saw the flash of hurt in her eyes as I criticised her, and a wave of regret instantly flooded over me. She thinks she's a closed book, but to me, she never has been, and I think she's finally starting to realise it. I know she saw the surprise in my eyes when she conceded so quickly. Maybe this is the start of something better? A relationship where we don't argue all the time over the small things. I know she's moved on enough not to need me anymore and I know she knows I've done the same, but that doesn't have to mean anything. We can still be together.

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Word Count: 2470
Reading time: approx 12 minutes

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