Please Note: This story takes place at the moment of Kitty and Pete breaking up. I hated the way Raab explained it, "You don't make me feel young" *makes gagging noise* so I had to explain it away. And here it is. It's from Kitty's perspective, so if you don't like first person perspective you might want to read something else.
There is a phrase my mother used to tell me when I was a child. I thought nothing of it at the time. "If you love something set it free. If it comes back to you it is yours. If not it was never meant to be." I thought that, in my childish mind, was silly. You didn't let something you loved go free. You held it tightly and treasured it and never took that person or object for granted. It wasn't until I got older and lost people and things close to me that I realized what my mother had meant by that comment. I never realized how true it actually was until I did what I had to do days ago. God it's been days? Doesn't feel that way. Feels more like a painful eternity.
My tears they fall, upon my skin like rain. My pain it slashes into my soul, razor blades cutting sharp. Why did I do it? Why did I push you away from me? You were the light in my life, the fire in my soul, but I didn't realize it until it was too late. I was in denial about the depths of my feelings, and when I started to feel them I ran away. I found an excuse to end the best thing that had ever entered my life. You left without knowing this and how much I love you. If only I could truly make us one. Body and soul melded for an instant. To make you feel this type of pain would be worth the loss of self for a few precious instants in time. Because then you'd truly understand how much I feel and how much I truly do care for you. And you'd know once and for all that you'll never know this type of love again. I hope you look deeper my love and realize that someday. And perhaps, just perhaps you will come back to me.
"If you love something set it free..." yeah I know what that phrase means in every sense of the word now. I feel as if a piece of myself is missing and God only knows if I'll ever get it back again. It'll be hard since I gave it away voluntarily to you months ago. I just hope and pray that God will help me heal if you don't come back to me. Because if you don't it is for the best, for you have something better waiting for you out there. Me? I could honestly care because I'm still in love with you and probably always will be. "If you love something set it free..." those words have become my mantra the last couple of days. It's a true phrase yeah but that doesn't mean that it sucks any less to show that type of love by letting someone you love go.
A week earlier
I was standing at the window when you walked into the room. I could tell it was you without turning around. I knew the sound of your footfalls, the sound of your dress slacks rubbing against one another, even your smell was lodged into my soul like a burn scar. You say that you knew that I wanted to talk to you an instant later and I swallow hard as I turn around and look into your eyes, the eyes I had seen lit with love, passion, humor, and all other scopes of human emotion. I feel the pain lashing at me, but I swallow hard and do what I know is best for you. You and I both know down deep inside that this isn't going to work. My life is just too dangerous for you. You deserve to be happy and living in peace. I mean in the months since I've known you I've been the happiest woman on the face of the planet. Happier than I ever thought possible. At least in our relationship. The rest of my life went to hell, but you stuck it out with me and let me rant, rave, scream and yell at you anytime I needed it. You wanted to save me from it I could tell, but you didn't. You let me work it out like a true adult would and I will always love you more for that.
Now my life is getting back to what passes for normal and I started to realize a couple of things. For one thing in the short period of time we've been together you've almost been killed so many times that it surprises me you're still around and cracking sarcasm at people. For God's sake my ex-boyfriend almost crushed in your head like a watermellon and you didn't even hold a grudge. But I can't tell you that I'm protecting you from my life and all that comes with it as a reason for breaking up with you, so I blank my eyes and tell the biggest amount of BS that I've ever told anyone in my life. You don't make me feel young? I feel younger and more alive when I'm around you. I laugh more, I know I calm down your sizeable temper, and we get along in more ways then two people ever did. We can meet eyes across the room and know what the other one is thinking or share a common thought. It's just the way our love works. If ever I thought I had a soulmate it would be in you. And it's because of that soul deep love that I have to set you free. Before my life completely destroys you and all the good you have in you. I just hope you buy the line of tripe that I'm feeding you and don't make me tell the truth or lie and say that I don't love you. I don't think I could come out with the words "I don't love you" and mean them. It'd be too whopping of a lie.
You buy it I can tell and after a couple minutes of very hurt filled words, none of which I blame you at all for, you leave and go to pack your things. I knew you'd leave. Being here around me is too painful. I also know you well enough to know what is going through your mind. That you're not good for me, that you're too old for me anyway, that your old way of life is what caused me to fall out of love with you, when in truth it's the exact opposite. I respect you for surviving as long as you have and doing what you needed to to get through life. You're older than me true, but I've always been older in my heart and mind then my body can compensate with. You challenge me on so many levels that I doubt I'd ever truly know all of you, and that is a challenge I would love to have undertaken. And I never doubted that you loved me. Not since you were forced to say it. I know you didn't want to tell me, even the night I told you I loved you. I didn't want or expect an answer in return...I just wanted to share, but the fact that you said it first was not only a surprise but just wonderful to hear. Your eyes...I choke and slam the door on those thoughts before they overwhelm me, slowly sliding down the wall, not even realizing I have Lockheed in a choke hold as the tears start to fall like acid, burning paths down my cheeks.
************
I somehow manage to fall asleep, probably from exhaustion and emotional burnout, and then looking out the window again for the fifteenth time today I see you standing there, your bags at your feet, waiting for the ferry that will take you out of my life forever. I can't take that as I wave and the tears back up in my eyes again, only a shear act of will keeping them from falling. I make the decision in a snap, moving so fast that Lockheed takes flight in shock. I run down the stairs, in my state not even realizing I could have merely phased through the outer shell of Muir, and run in a blur out the door.
I don't notice the precarious trip to the dock, there being many many cliffs that I could simply slip and go off especially in my old sneakers, but I don't heed the danger at all. I just have to reach you, make you understand a little, and perhaps keep you somehow in my life even if it might destroy you and I someday. I stop before you, breathing harder than I would have liked, and for once my mind is blanked on what to say. Me, the woman who always has an opinion, who always knows what to say about something, can't even find the words that she feels welling up inside her throat screaming to be released. Finally I take a deep breath and just go with my heart, "Pete, I'm sorry. I'm just...I'm sorry. I know you're leaving and I understand why. Can we at least stay friends?" I hate the pleading tone in my voice, but ignore it for if it gets me the results I crave then the loss of pride would be worth it. I see the ice and hardness in your eyes melt a bit, the pain I see there almost doing me in. You smile that quirky little smile I always loved, pull me gently to you and lay your head on top of my hair. I choke on tears and breath in your scent and hear the beating of your heart for the last time and hold those into my memory in every minute detail. You hold me a little tighter and then mutter words I want to hear but don't want to hear, "Yeah Cat...maybe...someday, but not now. Now I need to be alone and away from the source of my pain. Thank you for at least being honest with me." You then let me go, the honking of the ferry telling him it was time to leave. You don't even look back and I realize something. I'm the source of your pain that you need to be away from, to heal, but you have become a source of pain for me that I wonder if it will ever heal.
As I watch the ferry trek across the rough sea I just pray I did the right thing and that you'd be safer and better off without me. It wasn't much comfort.