"I know..." Reen said quietly
They knew that they both had faults in this situation. They knew that the other didn't have any right to scold or blame each other. They knew they were more than friends yet less than lovers, both knew it quite clearly preventing them to actually demand anything in this scenario.
"Sae, I can't do this right now." She said while her voice quivered with pain and nervousness as she clenched her pendant yet again.
"I won't hear any of that nonsense! I don't understand Reen. We both know we were at fault so can't we worked it out?" His voice was filled with sadness and regret.
"I'm sorry Sae, it's not that I don't want to talk about "us"... It's just that being in this situation made me think of a lot of things and the future together with you."
As she did not have any chance of escaping this situation she decided to bite the bullet [2] and go on with her decision.
"W-what do you mean..?" He said in disbelief. Reen looked up at him, faced him and stared deeply at his eyes.
"This… whatever this is… we have right now. It won't work…" She said trying to control her surging emotions.
"That… Is it because of Meera? She… she wasn't really…" He stammered while trying to explain himself
"It's not only because of her. It's because of us too… Sae, don't you get it? This will never work out. Each time I have a new project that pairs up with a man the same thing will happen. People will create rumors regardless if what they saw is true or not…"
"If you just explain everything to me, we can definitely work this out. Come on Reen, we should not give up; we haven't even started anything yet. We can definitely work this out!" He said not really sure if he was convincing her or himself.
"That's my point Sae, we should stop it before we start anything at all, to not waste both our time." She said earnestly
The last part had hurt him greatly which also hurt her too. Silence engulf them. Sae realizing that he could even sharpen an ax on top of her head [3] and she still would not relent inhaled deeply trying to control his emotions.
"Alright... If that's what you really want. I also can't guarantee that I can endure the same thing happening over and over again too so… " He said, pain and reluctance could be heard from his voice.
He was also a prideful man; if she insisted on it then he wouldn't force her to do otherwise.
Reen merely nodded indicating her consent bowing her head in obvious pain
"Well, I guess that's it then. There's no use crying over spilt milk [1], I guess this is goodbye…?" he said in a whisper
"I hope we can still stay as friends…" Reen whispered with hope
Staring at her with pain and regret while suppressing the urge to shout at her absurd request after she had dumped him
"I hope we can too…" He whispered as he walked out of the library with a mixture of emotions.
Author's Notes:
(• •)
FYI: The emojis are not mine, got them from Google
[1] Meaning, being upset over something that has already happened and cannot be changed regardless how you cry and regret it.
[2] To decide to do something difficult or unpleasant that one has been putting off or hesitating over.
[3] From Russian translator Aliaksandr Autayeu which means "a very stubborn person" which was originally written as Хоть кол на голове теши