Broken Pieces

After arriving at my own home that Bill had purchased for me for Christmas that I was making payments on to pay half, I gathered my things and headed inside. I felt empty, broken, somber. My face showed no sign of emotion and I didn't know why I just couldn't feel anything but this numb emptiness. The worst pain was the sharp pull in my chest when I realized I was not the one he loved. It was like a separation of something, could that have broken the bond? My phone chimed and I looked down at the text message.

~Jessica. I am glad you are home from Romania. I have been getting great reviews from your visit. I need to meet with you as soon as possible. I am going to be home in a few hours and would like to talk to you. I love you.~

Anger surged through me out of no where and I threw my phone against the glass pane window, watched it shatter and let my breath out slowly. Something moved on my neck and I realized I was wearing the necklace he'd given me. I pulled it from my neck and removed my engagement ring, walked to the trash can and opened it. Staring at the bottom of the empty trash, holding the necklace and ring in my palm as I stared down at it wondering if I wanted to toss it, bury it...or burn it too.

Quinn saw the glass from the window fly outward as the car pulled up. Time to face things...

"Driver, once I get out, head home. I will get there later by other means. Tell Vincent I may be staying here for a day or so if I am not home by sunrise."

He climbed out of the back seat and stood in the front drive until the car;s dust trail was gone. He turn turned toward the broken window, and whispered the one thing he knew she would recognize as only him...

"Koibito, I am here. I will wait here until invited in to talk or killed by your own hands. It is your choice. Listen or Kill. I will not leave until one happens."

I heard the faint whisper of his voice and it send a cold chill up my spine. Closing my palm tightly I held the things in my hand and closed my eyes. Clenching my jaw I tossed them on the counter and turned to face the door that remained shattered. His outline stood outside next to the pool and I just stared at him. Part of me wanted to kill him, part of me wanted to slap him. There could be no 'explanation' of what happened, it was pure as day what happened. The lump in my throat grew as I just stared at him saying nothing. I could see the darkened clouds moving around the sky, rumbling and flickering lightning in the distance. The wind seemed to grow colder as the storm approached.

Slowly I stepped closer to the door and folded my arms across my chest. "I have nothing for you."

"I have nothing for you."

"If that were true, Koibito, I would be dead already. The choice is yours and I will wait for you to decide in your own time."

He knelt down on the stones of the path, settling to wait as long as it took for her to choose. He already knew he had no intention of living without her. He would not leave. He would not even try to stop her.

I scoffed and shook my head. The heels I still wore from my 'business trip' that I assumed now was a ploy to get me away so that he could be free to fuck Kiara, clicked against the floor. I stepped through the shattered door, the sounds of cracking glass under my feet. My arms securely wrapped around me as I watched him. I had no remorse for him, nothing. I turned it all off, I was numb to anything. At least...I thought.

Being so close to him again, inhaling his scent as he knelt on the stone walkway with pleading eyes. My eyes burned and I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream out at the pain I was feeling within right now.

"You call me your Koibito..." I laughed, shocking myself I actually laughed. "...and yet you obviously don't know the meaning of it." I slowly squat down to meet his eye level but kept my distance. "Why are you here?"

Quinn watched her walk out. He could smell her anger and her pain as she walked close and knelt down near him.

"You call me your Koibito...and yet you obviously don't know the meaning of it.Why are you here?"

He looked into her eyes and spoke softly.

"I am here because I made a mistake and I wanted you to hear it from me. I do not claim innocence and I will tell you everything, should you wish to hear it. Even after that, the choice is still yours. I only wish to speak first of half truths and mistakes that have already become regrets."

He took a breath and began to speak.

"Vincent told me you had raised the security footage and what you thought you saw. I also saw when the feed got cut off, so you did not see the aftermath. You saw that I showed her something that made her emotional. You had been gone so long and all the strife she has been going though. We should not have been drinking..."

He stopped to think on what to say next as he looked into her eyes,hoping to see something...anything..

I watched his eyes as he spoke, when he took a breath I stood and began to walk around the pool area, listening. The wind blowing a bit harder as the rain approached.

"Vincent told me you had raised the security footage and what you thought you saw. I also saw when the feed got cut off, so you did not see the aftermath. You saw that I showed her something that made her emotional. You had been gone so long and all the strife she has been going though. We should not have been drinking..."

I grabbed the handle of a broom and snapped it in half against my leg, leaving a pointed shard in one hand, dropping the bottom half to the ground. "Should not have been drinking...Right, I see it was a simple mistake. I mean why would you possibly still love her, or have feelings for her, right?" I chuckled and shook my head.

Slowly I continued to walk around the pool, now behind him as I slowly walked around to face him again. I squat back down before him and flicked my wrist out to hand him the make shift stake. "Might as well get it over with Quinn, being staked would hurt less than being hurt by the one person I thought never would." My words were cold, and just as I finished speaking the clouds above broke and rain began to pour down. I remained where I was, the water not affecting me, but mixing with the one tear I let leave my eye.

"Might as well get it over with Quinn, being staked would hurt less than being hurt by the one person I thought never would."

He looked at the stake and felt tears in his eyes. He ripped his shirt open, baring his chest to her. Then he looked to his arm, seeing the tattoo reminded him of something that needed to be said. As the rain began to fall, he looked back up to her and spoke with no reservation.

"Jessica..yes, I still have feelings for her. She is always going to be part of my life."

He ran fingertips over the tattoo on his forearm tracing out the letters of Kiara's name hidden in the design.

"She is always going to be a part of my past, but I see you as my future. If we do not have a future, then strike. Strike true and end the pain for us both. What you did not see was that my love for you stopped everything. Yes, we got a bit inappropriate...but the thought of you and the pain it would cause you is what gave me the strength to stop. You are my reason, Koibito. That is a simple fact. If you can look me in the face and tell me that you have never made a mistake and hurt someone you cared about, I'll lay here and you can drain me dry without a shred of remorse. If you can do that, look me in the eye and tell me you are innocent of ever making a mistake, I will drive the spike in my own chest so you will not have to. What I did was wrong, and I own to that. All I ask is that you not let one mistake destroy all we have fought for."

He fell silent and waited for her to respond or strike....

My clothing was soaked, my hair wet around my face and fell flat. I listened to him speak and bare his chest to me, expecting me to end his life. He talked about Kiara and his past and that she did mean something to him and always would. It stung deep, but at this moment I had it in my head that I wasn't good enough for him. Until his fingers traced her name in his tattoo I never had noticed it before. I lowered my head and watched the crimson drop fall to the cement mixing with the rain water. Looking down at my hand with the stake, I clenched it in my hand and closed my eyes.

Standing I turned away from him so I wouldn't show my weakness to him, I wouldn't let him see me cry. "You want me to say I'm perfect, that I've never made a mistake." I shook my head as the tears broke through the wall I tried to hold up. Turning back to face him as the rain poured down on me, making it harder to see but not impossible. I had to yell over the crash of thunder and lightning. It was like a storm of my feelings that I myself had conjured somehow.

"You want me to say it's okay? It's not! But I won't act like I'm perfect, because I'm not." I watched him stand, his shirt ripped open as the rain beat down on his olive skin. "I want to hate you, I want to forget about you and act like you never existed." I stepped closer to him, my hand squeezing the stake tightly. "I want to die because dying feels better than the pain that's ripping me apart inside, seeing you with her. Touching her, kissing her, looking at her that way." I placed the stake to his chest, right above his heart and looked in his eyes. "I could never hurt you, much less kill you. But all the times I've been hurt, I feel dead inside and I'm not sure I'll ever recover from it." My hand shook and I released the stake letting it fall to the ground as I fell to my knees and let the rain continue to wash over me.

Quinn smelled the blood seeping from the scrape on his chest where she had held the stake, it mixed in the air with her tears. As she lowered to the ground, he draped his shirt over her in a pointless gesture, not realizing a small vial fell from the pocket to the gravel in front of her. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. He stood over her and spoke in a whisper.

"I will be here for you. I promised you that when I put the ring on your finger. I will not change that. No matter the outcome, I am here for you when you need me."

He felt his hand shake. It had been almost two days since his last dose. V was getting harder to find. Then he saw the vial...gods, please don't let her notice it...

I heard something clink against the cement and looked in front of me at the vial of red liquid that had come from the pocket of his shirt. I slowly reached for it just as I felt his hand shake on my back and I knew what was happening. Standing, I turned to look at him and shook my head. Before I could think I slapped him across the face with a loud smack, the lightning struck and illuminated the sky. The thunder roared and boomed as the rain fell harder. I just gaped at him with such disbelief that he'd seep this low. "Should I even try to ask whose blood this is, or do I want to know?"

I scoffed and looked at the vial in my hand. "Don't bother, just leave Quinn." I tossed it against the cement and watched the vial crack, blood seeping out into the cement. The smell hit my nose and I knew it was vampire blood. Before he could speak I turned and walked back inside going to the one place I knew he couldn't get to. My safe room.