31_days | [01/31/07] [Original Fiction] Providence

Title: Providence
Day/Theme: 31 But, I won't stay with you.
Series: Original Fiction
Character/Pairing: Original characters
Rating: R (language)
Author's Note: This is my first post on this community.

She didn’t think it was possible to be angry with someone this much.

Providence smashed the cigarette butt on the windowsill, grinding the bits of burnt tobacco and paper into the cold cement surface. It left a faint, sooty streak behind as she dragged it. She tried to pretend she was alone, letting her mane of strawberry blond obscure the left side of her face. Maybe if she pretended long enough, he would disappear already instead of prolonging the fucking inevitable the way he always did. Didn’t she have to deal with enough shit as it was?

"Are you going to talk to me or what?"

She narrowed her eyes. Refraining from giving in to a litany of curses, all of which he deserved to hear every scathing syllable of, she instead twisted around the stunted cigarette butt between her fingers.

"Providence."

She clenched her teeth together behind her lips.

"I know you’re listening."

I always listen, she wanted to hiss.

"This isn’t easy for me either. But I wanted you to know I’m not… I’m not…"

Her head snapped up and she whipped an acid glare his way. "Just fucking leave, goddammit. You’ve already done your damage. Do me a favor and take it the hell with you."

He wouldn’t. He stayed, he stayed and he glared, putting down roots, taking up arms. She didn’t expect him to abandon a confrontation, nooo, that would be expecting too much. "I don’t want it to end like this."

"Then don’t end it."

He sighed. "You know we – I – have to. This, you and me, isn’t working."

She lit another cigarette. "Not gonna argue with that."

"So why’re you so damn mad for?"

She snapped. "Because you’re breaking my fucking heart! ‘Uh, honey, this ain’t working, I want to break up.’ The hell kind of sensitivity you trying to show me with that?"

"Any kind? It wouldn’t have mattered how I came to you about it, you still would have gotten pissy about it like you are now."

She took a drag and pointedly looked away, so angry for once speech had failed her.

He threw up his hands and raked his fingers through his hair. "See, you can’t even talk to me," he spoke softly. "I say something like this, you clam up and shut me out. I can’t stand that, Providence. I’m not like you. I can’t shut out people and ignore them."

She turned her head to look at him. "So you’re saying this is my fault."

"No. I’m just doing what you won’t do."

"What if I won’t do it because I love you?"

"Because that means you don’t."

They stared at one another in silence for a long time. Providence saw the chasm widen between herself and her soon-to-be-ex, a dark abyss where all the things said, unsaid and yet to be said fell in and disappeared into the void. Truly then she felt the encroaching reality of it, felt its icy grip close around her heart and her lungs like a steel vice. She suddenly felt winded and the room was suddenly way too small. She needed to get out of here. But that would be doing what he said and she would be damned if she wouldn’t stand up to a challenge now.

She started, speaking his name, but he shook his head and stood up. "I’m going," he told her, his eyes saying he knew what it was she couldn’t say because he would not let her. "Okay?"

Providence smashed her cigarette again, nodding, not looking at him. When she finally did, he was gone.