I may have the perfect thing for her! It may be cheesy, and I may have completely missed the point, but it's fancy, I imagine also thoughtful, and something that's right up Annabelle's alley. It's the most basic of the things - tickets for the show. I know, lame, maybe even a bit too much, but that's how it is with me - go hard or go home.

In my mind, the tickets were hard to acquire. I know that seeing The Nutcracker with Aidan was absolutely nightmarish just because of getting the tickets. By the time we got to go to the show, we were all exhausted and just happy that a family returned the tickets just in time for us to buy it. And then Aidan didn't even like it!

Naturally, because of my previous experience, I panicked and started calling the institution obsessively. My motto was, if they don't have the tickets, they'll give me two just so I'd stop calling them.

When they didn't pick up the first few times and I was receiving calls, I was going insane, hanging up on everyone that wanted even a mere second of my time and attention. When they did answer the calls, however, I got the tickets easily. So, if she'll be happy about it, and I'm pretty sure she will be, Annabelle and I will go to see Faust the opera.

Now, I'm not big on operas. I can appreciate them, yes, but I am not exactly a fan of them. But Annabelle looks like someone who is definitely into these cultural things, and if she likes that, if she enjoys in men and women squealing loudly, that's good enough a motivation for me.

Once all of this is put to rest, I finally check the missed calls. I know I'm a popular guy, a delight to be around, but I didn't know I was that desired. The calls were mostly from business associates of Wells & Hether, one was from May asking me if I'd be up to spend a day with her boys, and the last one was from Mr Perfect - Mason de Souza.

He left me a voicemail even more concerned about my well-being than the first one. The fucker won't quit. Why can't he just accept I left and that I don't need him or his stupid wedding band. I don't understand why is he so concerned at all. He doesn't know I have a personal vendetta against him.

I brush off his existence from my awareness of today almost in the next minute. My mind is quite at peace knowing Annabelle is full of hickeys, therefore he won't approach her with an apology and pathetic drooling, and I'm way too excited about the opera, which I find quite weird to say. I never thought I'd be that excited about opera, even less going there with a woman.

Honestly, what truly occupies my mind is how Annabelle will react to it. I hope she will like it and just like that doubt is inseminated in my mind. What if it's going to be too much? What if she really dislikes Goethe? Maybe she likes ballets, but as far as operas are concerned she can't stand them!

I consciously calm myself down. Annabelle is a lovely woman with a deep appreciation of culture. Is it going to be too much? Maybe it is, but I can always say that I thought going to the opera would be like going to the ballet when she got me an invitation to it! I can always talk myself out of it and, let's be honest, she will end up going to Faust with me.

And not just that! If I know her, and I think I know her quite well by now, she will put on a very sophisticated and beautiful outfit, style her hair, and add a hint of makeup on her lips and eyelids. I don't have to close my eyes to imagine her. I can see her in a long strapless baby-pink dress of a mermaid shape and a short jacket with lace to cover her shoulders on our way home. She will braid her hair and put it up in a braided bun, and the gloss on her lips, the white eye-shadow and a thin eyeliner will compliment all of her features. She will easily be one of the most beautiful women there whether she does put on a dress like that or if she decides to come to the opera in her jogging outfit.

The more I imagine us at the opera, observing the performance, me slightly dying, maybe Annabelle as well, the more excited I get. It's like I bought these tickets as a gift for myself, not for Annabelle. Technically, that's true... I will get to be around Annabelle and I will get to see her in all her beauty. I didn't really buy tickets to the opera, did I? I bought tickets for the damn Garden of Eden!

The ride in the elevator in my apartment building is, therefore, a slow burn for me. I'm like a kid who shouldn't reach and grasp for the lollipop greedily but should contain himself, control the impulses and take the lollipop slowly and with all the best manners. Not being able to fall on the knees in front of Annabelle and show her the tickets, as if they were golden tickets for Wonka's factory, is killing me, eating me from inside out.

Oh, to see the look on her face when I tell her about my plan!

I feel like imploding. I feel like the stomach acid has eaten through the walls of my stomach and is now burning me inside out, but it's not pain; it's oddly similar to passion. Well, I'm passionate about making her happy, aren't I?

As the elevator's doors open, I get an overwhelming stomachache. I don't know if I'm gonna throw up or shit myself, but none of the above would do me any good. If I just think about telling Annabelle about the opera and that I have the tickets for her and for me, I know it's not my stomach that's twisting anymore, but my entire oesophagus.

I stand in front of my apartment for a moment or two, trying to recollect myself after seeing every step I took down the hallway, as a step towards a destiny, which, you never know, could be either good or bad.

I close my eyes and calm myself down. I know she will be happy. She appreciates these things, and she strikes me exactly as someone who loves the story of a romantic man making a deal with the devil and then escaping the hellish fires with his loved one holding his hand. Even I find that storyline striking, and I'm someone who likes to learn about the history of train tracks!

She's gonna love it. I can turn this around any way I want, but the bottom line is that she is going to love it. I gotta prepare myself, though. Maybe she won't exactly love it at first. It's totally possible she'll be a bit exasperated, baffled, confused, any of other close-to-being synonyms. Yet, the reality is she will eventually give me a tight hug and thank me for getting the tickets.

Some of my confidence in this project of mine returns. Before I enter the apartment, I give my wallet with the tickets a light squeeze as a sort of encouragement. I'm not saying that it works, but I do feel better after feeling the leathery texture in my palm and imagining the tickets just lying inside and waiting for me to pull them out and hand them to the ginger lady.

I walk in, now with a smile on my face that at first feels forced, like this is how I deal with stress - smiling and breaking a sweat at the same time. Though, when I see her sitting in the couch, I realise everything I've imagined today - from making her happy to actually going to the opera - is not that far-fetched, and my smile gets an honest glint to it.

"You are going to love me!" I exclaim happily when she looks at me. And boy, do those hickeys show!

Good.

Her face expression is completely still like she's trying to fathom something, and I take it that that's probably my unusual exclamation. "I am?"

I run to the couch and plop down next to her, leaving the jacket, the shoes, all of it on the floor as I make my way. I can always pick that shit up later. "Yes, yes, you are!"

It really shows at that moment that I'm hella nervous because as I try to swoop out my wallet and present her the tickets, the wallet gets magically stuck in my pocket and it won't budge no matter how hard I pull or in what direction I turn it. She doesn't budge to it at all, though. She is completely still, giving me all the time in the world. I swear, that woman is a damn saint.

"Why would I though?"

My eyes jump up to hers that seem... kind of empty, even detached from the world. I start to panic a little, maybe this is not the best time to give her the gift and all. Maybe she wasn't that closed off when I came home because I said something that is not exactly my signature move, maybe it's something that's bothering her, all sorts of things could've happened today.

I let go of the wallet and leave it in the pocket - it obviously wants to stay there, so I might as well just leave it there and focus on Annabelle, after all, this is about her.

"Has something happened?"

Annabelle clasps her hands, and she looks so unlike Annabelle. All the strong and soft quality about her is gone, she looks more like Caitlin now - distant, cold, unsympathetic. "I met with Mason today."

I can say it felt like someone shot me in the brain. And that the bullet had a combination of mushrooms from Alice in Wonderland because it made me feel unproportionate and the corners of my sight started to get foggy. But that description doesn't even come close to describing the disaster I'm going through. The scorching pain is indescribable, the disorientation felt not just in my body and in my head, but in a heart, in a figuratively-meant heart. And that causes additional panic.

"Oh... How did it go?"

I don't want to know. I just know you want him. And what I know is that I don't want to know.

Annabelle nods in a slow and minimal manner, more hinting at a sort of disappointment than at a state of relaxation. "It was alright. You know, as alright as it can be for seeing your ex after such a long time. It felt like we were strangers now. It's weird to think we lived together and we planned on getting married, you know?" Before I even nod, she gives me a polite, not an honest, a polite smile. "Oh, but you know. I don't know why I'm telling you about this all over again."

My face cannot move, I'm quite sure about that because every muscle that I move, feels like dragging a giant weight behind me, but if it could move, I would definitely resonate suspicion. Something is so wrong I don't even know what to pinpoint it to.

"You seem disappointed by seeing him. Are you sure it was all alright?"

"Oh, I am disappointed." She looks down at her hands and gives them a whimpering laugh.

Her shoulders kind of fidget when I try to put my arm around them, so I just redirect them to the cushion behind us. She seems the kind of upset where you appear perfectly calm, collected, like someone rational who figures things out and knows how to fix one's problems, but you're actually just a drop from falling apart, from bursting out and tearing someone's head off or crashing down on the ground into pieces.

"He was great, you know. He's always been so considerate and this time was no different. It felt good. All of it. It felt good seeing him again. Like that was a stepping stone for me to... I don't know, continue my life. It was weird, at first, but then it got better. We started talking about all kinds of things. Work, relationships, memories, mistakes, our families. It really reminded me why I fell for him and wanted to build a family with him." Suddenly she releases a sort of sob that she's been trying to contain. "But imagine my surprise, Nathan..."

Oh, no...

She quickly wipes the tear from her cheek, maybe trying to hide it from me, or for trying to make herself believe she is strong and that she can do this. "Imagine my damn surprise, when he called one of his clients, and... and it got redirected to your voicemail."

Oh... Fuck... Me...

I sit there, baffled, shrunk down to the size of an ant. I don't fucking know what to tell her! What do I fucking say! What did that sleazy motherfucker tell her!

"Annabelle-"

The tears that were gathering in pools in her eyes suddenly disappear, and all that's left if unreleased anger. "Yes, please, explain yourself. I would love to hear what you've got to say!" She gets up and I just sit there, feeling as little as I look to her right now. "Hm? You're gonna say you-you're not the only Nathan Price? The only engineer Nathan Price? The only engineer Nathan Price who-whose voicemail says 'You've reached Nathan Price from Wells & Hether, and I can't or don't want to pick up the phone'? Is that what you're going to say?!"

"Annabelle, calm down. Please. I'll explain everything."

This is so fucking bad. How do I fucking explain this? That I just wanted to see the guy she used to date? That I... That I went there out of pure jealousy? And so I'd feel better about myself, even though after that disastrous meeting I didn't? What the fuck do I tell her?!

"By all means do, Nathan! It's what I'm waiting for, and it better be a damn good reason!"

"I just wanted to meet him. That's all. I just wanted to see the guy you were so crazy about."

"Yeah? Tell me." She sits down in one of the armchairs and leans forward in my direction like she's incredibly immersed in the conversation. But I don't think it really matters what I have to say. "What did you think about him, hm?"

That he's perfect. Sweet. Nice. A damn fucking hippie.

"I-I can see why you liked him. Seemed like a genuinely nice guy."

She nods a couple of times too many for this to be a normal conversation not fueled by anger or fear. "He is, yeah. Anything else you observed?"

Not worthy of you.

"Annabelle, I didn't do anything. I just went to see him. Where's the crime in that?"

"The crime," she gets up again and starts walking around the living room, "is that you were rude, acting like a child! Demeaning him, trying to hurt him! He is nice and he is sweet, but he is not damn stupid, Nathan! Just because he doesn't react to the things with his ego, it doesn't mean he doesn't notice everything you said to him and how you looked at him like you were measuring him and, how do I put this, comparing him to your irresistible appearance of a god of sex! Are you a fucking ape?!"

"I wanted to see him!" I leap to my feet on a sheer impulse of anger. "I wanted to see him because you loved him! I wanted to see the guy who obsessed you that much!"

"Yes! Yes, I did love him! So, what if I did?! Does that give you a right to insult him however you see fit?!"

"Annabelle, he doesn't deserve you! Are you freaking blind?! Do you not see a-a pathetic wedding-bander that he is? His teeth are crooked, he has two chopsticks for legs, and he thinks he'll save the world with playing love songs on his fucking guitar! And you're still yearning for him like he's something special, which he's not, and you are!"

Annabelle huffs in disbelief. "He has to be something special for me to love him? He is one of the best people I've ever met! Sincere and good. That's what matters! I don't need him to have chiselled abs! I don't need him to have thick hair! I don't need him to have a perfect smile! He loved me! He treated me well. Maybe he's not the Hollywood's sexiest man alive, but he is special because he loved me!"

"Oh, special as in retarded, then? Special as in pathetic? Special as in missing the not?! You settled for him, decided that he's good enough for you, some average boy-next-door that was probably fat in middle school! And ironically, he's the one that left you, deciding you weren't good enough when in fact he doesn't deserve you!"

"Who deserves me then, Nathan?! The boyfriend that lied to me about a condom? Your brother after your ex is done fooling around with him? You?!"

I stiffen across the entire body, both paralysed and turned into stone. I'm unable to move, unable to say anything. I want to scream yes and tell her that whatever Mason gave her, I can double it, triple it! But I hold back because... Then she'll know.

I take a step back and away from her, and I see it on her face as it softens, changes into one of disbelief and full of empathy. I don't need to tell her.

"Oh my God... Oh my God..." She slowly sinks down in the armchair and cups her face as she battles to grasp that.

Meanwhile, I'm still standing there, practically pressed against the wall both literally and metaphorically. What the hell do I tell her now... That I got the damn Faust tickets? Yeah, what a fucking terrific plan!

"You do mean you..." she says and looks at me from afar, still sitting in her armchair, but then she buries her face back in her palms. "Oh, Christ..."

She has to fucking stop with this... This, she being like this, it's fucking destroying me. It's bad enough she knows that I... that I don't know what I feel, but now she also has to sigh and moan like the fucking Moaning Myrtle.

"You really were... comparing yourself to him?" The eyes she looks at me with... I don't know how to describe that look.

My entire right side is pressed against the wall, trying to dodge the eye contact with her. I am abnormally naked, abnormally exposed. Somehow, when I speak, I sound like the last bit of hope I've ever had has evaporated. "It doesn't matter, okay? He doesn't deserve you, and you clearly don't fucking care about that because you want him back."

"What? I want him back?"

"Come on, stop pretending! It was Mason this and Mason that. Everything was about that damn Mason, how he did it, why he did it, what a wonderful fucking guy he is, and for some goddamn reason, you still want him back! I could crack my skull on the sidewalk, and you'd still daydream about the fucking dwarf!"

Annabelle slowly rises from the chair. "Mason still hurt me! I couldn't even cry, and when I could, I couldn't stop! He hurt me in ways beyond imaginable!"

"Oh, so there's at least one thing you see clearly. Great."

"What is that supposed to mean? That I'm delusional and thought that was his way of tough love?"

"That I couldn't just let him have you!"

Annabelle peers at me again, the anger slowly putting itself to rest, and her hand instinctively jumps to her neck. "The hickeys..."

Oh, for Christ's sake, if someone's not gonna kill me, I'm gonna throw myself through the window...

Her glare says on me persistently. Little by little, step by step, she comes closer to me. "Tell me that what I'm thinking isn't true."

I finally look her right in the eye, for before that I simply couldn't do it.

She points at her neck. "Did you do you these so-"

"So he wouldn't go for you. To show him you've moved on, that you have someone else."

Annabelle breathes out, closing her eyes as she does that. "And you're that someone else." Her glare resonates incredulity as she stands in the middle of the living room perfectly still. "I can't believe you'd do this..." She gasps for air as she holds back tides of anger and the urge to cry. "You marked me like... Like I'm your possession. It's like sticking a flag in the fucking moon. Out of all the people, you ended up being the biggest asshole of them all. How could you do it?"

"I had to do something when you told me he wanted to meet with you again. Why would a fuckface like him want to see you other than to beg you to take him back! And you would take him back, don't even pretend otherwise! You know it, I know it, and even he fucking knows it! And I had to do something, even if it makes me look like a total asshole!"

"Are you even listening to yourself? You could have talked to me! Because, news flash, that's what people fucking do! They don't go plotting behind each other's back! Do you want to know what a moron you are, Nathan?"

"Oh, yeah, give me your worst!"

"You wanna know?"

"Yeah, bring it on!"

She suddenly makes a pause, and Devon starts crying in his room. As if things couldn't get any worse. "You do? Alright. Mason wanted his stuff back from my place. That's why he called me. You just never bothered to ask me anything about it." Annabelle laughs as she slicks her hair back. "The stupidest thing is that I actually thought you respected me. I guess you don't even think I respect myself."

In response, I get to laugh at that. Frankly, I literally have nothing to lose anymore. She knows I went to see that stupid ex of hers that would've by now most likely apologised to her, and she knows why I left her the hickeys. "Wow, that is low even for you, Annabelle!"

"Is it? The first thing you assumed was that I was gonna take him back! And you saw what him breaking up with me did to me! You didn't even bother to talk to me about it, you just marked me. For Christ's sake, why didn't you piss on me as well to show dominance!"

We both fall silent. Both of us probably with a lot of other things to say, but if I tell her what I think right now... It just wouldn't end well, and this already isn't peachy. Devon is still crying in the other room, and as much as I'd like to console him, I really don't have time right now with raging Annabelle in the room.

"What was your plan then?" Her voice is trying to stay calm and refrain from screaming. "Give me a bunch of hickeys, shoo Mason away, and then what?"

What does she mean and then what? And then everything would be fine! Everything would be normal, just like before! It would be as it should've been all along!

"Did you even have a plan?"

"What plan! What do you mean what then! Things were normal and great before. What plan are you even talking about?"

Her shoulders drop down to a level and when she speaks, it's a struggle to even hear her. "All of that for nothing then? No- I don't know - no considerate invitation, no 'I think I like you, Annabelle', nothing?"

"Would it make any difference at all?"

She shrugs and hugs herself as the waterfalls break from her eyes. "I would've said it back, Nathan."

Wait... Wait, wait, wait.

Hold. Up.

"What?" Her words slowly sink in. She would've said it back... She... She likes me... She wasn't just being nice all that time, she - she really likes me. Just as I begin to relax at this revelation that it was me who actually won, not Mason, something dawns on me. "Why would things have to change? Are you gonna say it wasn't fun, that things weren't good?"

"I'm sorry, but am I old-fashioned for believing when a boy and a girl like each other they want to be together?"

"Woah, hell no!" I call out, backing away and putting my hands up in defence. "I'm not... You know that... No!"

Still hugging herself, she lets out a tired whisper. "What the hell do you want then..."

"I want the way things were before. I need my freedom, I like my freedom. And relationships are exactly the opposite of that. And because I happen to like you, it's not gonna change everything else."

Her brows knit together as I say the last couple of words and the pools fill with tears again. "Because you just happen to like me..."

"No, wait-" I cut myself short, trying to find the words that would make this better, that wouldn't make me seem like a total villain. I don't just happen to like her, know that, but how do I put it into words so that she won't think I want to marry her or some bullshit like that. But as I look at her, she is beyond pissed. She is so beyond pissed, she can't even be angry anymore, just sad and hurt. "That's not how I meant it. I don't - I can't explain it, okay? But I'm not changing myself."

"Clearly."

Shit, no... Annabelle...

"But it doesn't mean this has to stop, does it?" I don't want this to stop. We're such a good pair, and the affection shouldn't be an obstacle to this! I can just imagine all the passion getting ten times better than before.

Her voice is weak when she speaks and the high hopes I've given myself earlier nearly evaporate. "How exactly?"

"Look," I say and get the courage to approach her and take a hold of her hands. It's... weird touching her now, now that all the cards are on the table. It's even odder to do that with Devon crying tirelessly in the next room. When I hold her hands in my palms, she looks at them directly like it's completely unexpected, even foreign to her. "This can still go on. It can only get better from now on. We just go about it the same way as before."

"Right, because you're perfectly capable of seeing me going on dates. For someone that doesn't want relationships, you sure are jealous of other guys."

"I didn't mean you'd be going on dates... I mean, with me you don't even need them, do you?"

She keeps her eyes on our hands still, it's just that she has her brows furrowed and looks extremely tired. It appears she is talking to our holding hands, and not to me at all. "How is that any different than a relationship then?"

I want to tell her exactly what I mean, but as I try to form words, I immediately know what's going to happen. She's not going to like the suggestion at all. But maybe not at first, she could still ease into the idea of it a bit later, couldn't she?

I don't say a thing when she slowly lifts her distrustful look up at me. "You'd still want your freedom." Annabelle pulls her hands away from mine and walks across the entire living room as if trying to get as far away from me as possible. "You wouldn't want to be with me, just have me here, while screwing a bunch of other women whenever you'd feel like it?"

When you put it like that...

"I wouldn't say it like that."

Annabelle closes her eyes and puts her hands up to her temples. "Shut up. Just shut up." She takes a deep breath, and when she opens her eyes and looks at me, I see the same anger I've seen before. "You selfish, ignorant swine. I can't... I can't even believe you would suggest something like that!"

I pull myself back immediately as she strides over to my side. I completely press back against the wall, my eyes wide and the lungs unable to suck in any air. Everything that she says... She can't mean it. That's not the Annabelle I know, she can't really mean all of that. And to see her raging in the apartment here, I just want to calm her down. I don't want to see her upset and hurt, I want her happy, everything I've done was about her being happy.

I want, I need to calm her down. I don't want us to fight. "Annab-b-bele, s-stop."

"I can't believe I was really starting to like you! You told me about your family, you told me about your life, you were sharing things with me, and you weren't just the usual asshole that you normally are. I actually thought you were a good guy under a pretense. And you say you respect me. That you like me. That you're the only one who deserves me. When in reality you'd just like to make me one of your harem whores. If that's the best that I deserve, I'd rather die alone and childless after having to bury all of the members of my family!"

There are hooks all around my throat, tightening it together, and only fragments of words come out. I begin to panic. I can't... I can't have this come back. I can't stutter again. Not with Annabelle. But whenever she rages past me and I want to say something, anything, all of the words are stuck in my mouth, under my tongue, behind my teeth, in the back of my throat. I nearly start to shake in an attempt to say something, but still, only a soundless choking comes out. Spelling out words in my head, taking it slow, even repeating syllables, none of the shit works!

Annabelle is running around the apartment looking for her purse and things, and Devon is still crying in complete distress, his cries getting worse, more startling and clutching.

I need to tell her. I need to tell her that I care. That I truly care. That everything she said isn't true, that I did tell her things because I felt comfortable with her. That she's not one of many whores. That she's... That she's perfect in my eyes. Even now, even now when she's raging and crying and breaking down, dragging me down with her.

"I d-d-do c-care..."

Annabelle stops in front of the door before she leaves and slowly turns to look at me. Tears are running down her face unstoppably. "You know what you are, Nathan? You are by far not irresistible, the grand stallion that was god's gift to all women! If that helps you cope with the truth, then so be it. But you know damn well that you're still just a stuttering little boy desperate for your mummy's attention!"

A/: So... Any thoughts? 😬😬😬

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