I cannot wrap my head around what has just happened. My lower jaw has dropped as I attempt to process what has just happened. Pain radiates through the left side of my face and I taste copper. Somehow, my mind instantaneously flips through thousand of memories and finds a thousands excuse to pardon what has just happened. Not a single word has passed your lips and I think back and wonder. Could I have stopped this?

I remember coming into your house. The scent of baking bread drew me into your kitchen. A DiGiorno pizza   sat on a plate on your counter top.

"Hey," you said to me as you placed two aromatic slices onto a ceramic plate.I grabbed the plate from your hand and immediately sank my teeth into a slice. The scalding piece burns my mouth but I continue to chew and swallow anyway. 

"Will you go to the dinner tomorrow?" I asked. 

You replied, "Sorry, I can't. I'm busy with my job. I told you." as you finished picked up a slice from your plate.

"With your side piece?" I muttered.

Your brow furrowed, and you set the slice down. 

Your nostrils flared as you reply; "I'm not in the mood." Though your warning was clear, I didn't stop. I continued to rain my insecurities upon your head. Your face became darker with every word that left my mouth until finally, the onslaught became a match of equal verbal blows. 

I don't remember what I said, but I remember the regret that followed seconds after it left my lips. Before I had the chance to say "I'm sorry" or dig a deeper grave for myself, your hand was on my cheek. 

Now we're both looking at each other with a mask of blank expression. At least, I hope yours is a mask; there is no way after all we've been through- that you'll do this to me and you will be as unmoved as you look. The burn in my mouth from earlier has worsened from your contact, and it tastes like i'm holding a nail in my mouth. 

Your expressionless eyes look like topaz stone in the afternoon light. My face is still throbbing and I raise my hand to my face... to do what? I know that in the extreme unlike hood that you decide to strike me again, they will not protect me. 

One question, one word persists in my mind. 'How?' The mask cracks and a solitary falls from my left eye. I can tell it sets you off. You start to make apologies that further confuse me .

"God, I'm so sorry." I have to strain my ears to hear you. "I shouldn't have done that," you add. You step towards me and I flinch; you move back to your place. 

"I'm sorry, I never wanted to hurt you like this."

But you already have, just like this and more than I think you'll ever realize. The emotions weigh down like a lead on my tongue, but I hope my silence has told you the volumes you need to know. I leave you standing there in the kitchen. 

I decide once outside that if anyone should ask, I'll explain that I had the misfortune of slipping on a piece of carpeting and landing face-first. 

I call you three days later to meet me in the place where once spent hours together. When you walk in, i see the somber expression of your face and then, and there, I realize. 

If you are the antagonists and villain of this story, that one day will become one day of many days like it to come. If you are the protagonist and hero of the tale to come, that day will hang over your head like a cloud of judgment that will inevitably rain upon you. Either way, you cannot be written into my story any further. 

It's quite a paradox; I originally came to reconfirm our relationship, to put a cast over it so that it would mend like a growing bone. But, now, it has become too obvious; like a ceramic, we were shattered beyond repair the day in which it all ended!