26.

As soon as the door slammed against its hindges, my body kicked into over drive. No, he couldn't leave. I loved him too much to watch his back turn and to watch him leave me like this. I loved him too much to not work this out.

I ran out of the shop after him, my body running on adrenaline and what seemed to be the energy from my breaking heart. And it really was breaking. I needed him, I couldn't watch him leave me.

"Nick!" I shouted. His body turned on the pavement and he watched me run after him. He didn't move but his intense eyes on my body gave me the confidence I needed. They always did. "Please, you can't go." I pleaded. I stopped before him, my breath coming out in short pants.

"I-"

"We can talk this out, I can make this better." I was desperate now, so desperate. I needed him to see sense, I needed him to want me. "Just don't go, don't leave me, please Nick, please." I was almost sobbing as I now clutched on to the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"I have to." He breathed. "I have to."

"You don't have to." I looked at him, his eyes showing me that he was also breaking. If this was too much for him, why was he doing it? We could be happy together, we were anyway.

Nick sighed before laying two hands to my face. I let him touch me, his touch already making me feel calmer, safer.

"I have to." He repeated. "This was never going to be easy and I wanted to leave you angry, not like this." He looked to me. "I wanted you to hate me so leaving would be easier."

"Don't leave at all!" I cried. "Nick, please, I love you." A tear fell from my eyes and Nick wiped it away. As soon as he did, he squeezed his eyes shut tightly. He shook his head as if he didn't want to hear the words at all.

"Don't." A strangled cry left his lips. "Don't make this harder than it is."

"I love you, Nick." I repeated forcefully. "I'll do anything, I promise."

"Cathy, stop." Nick snapped but his eyes started to tear up. I looked to him, wondering why he was feeling this way. Why did he want to leave me? Didn't I make him happy? Was I too much baggage? I had so many questions and no willpower to ask them. I needed him to stay first, because watching his back turn was just too much. He was hurting me, couldn't he see?

"I'll do anything for you, Nick. I'm sorry if I've never showed it, I'm sorry if I haven't made you happy but you walking out on me is going to kill me, Nick, I fucking need you, I need you more than anything." I didn't want to lay all the cards on the table this way. Should I have told him I loved him sooner? Didn't I make it obvious? I was a closed off person but I tried to show him I loved him. Because I did, and something like that was hard to cut off.

But he didn't realise how much I needed him.

"Cathy, you're guttering me." He breathed, a small tear left his eye as he said the words. He didn't bother wiping it away, I think he wanted me to see it, to see how much I was effecting him.

"I just want you to come home with me, Nick." I whispered, my throat closing so tightly I couldn't breath. I hadn't realised Nick leaving would make me hurt this much. Or maybe I had, I just hadn't thought about it. The thought was too much, and this was damn right unbearable.

"These last few months have showed me exactly where my home lies and it's with you, but I need to leave and you need to trust me." He looked to me, his eyes pleading. "You need to trust me and just give me some time, okay?"

"How much time do you need?" I asked. Could I give him time? "What do you want from me?"

"I've got to go, Cathy." He looked to me. "I need to leave." He flickered his eyes around us.

"Nick, tell me you're not leaving me." I pleaded. He left my body feeling bereft as he started to move backwards. "Nick!" I cried.

"I'm sorry, Cathy, for everything." His eyes started to tear up again, his face serious and so genuine. He was breaking, I could tell, I was feeling it too.

"Nick, no." I sobbed. "No." I could barely breath.

"I love you." He sobbed before he turned his back towards me and left. I watched his back leave, his words hanging in the air.

I collapsed to the floor, his body now gone with my heart leaving with him. He had torn me up inside and I felt like nothing.

If he loved me, why did he walk away?

Was this the way love was supposed to feel? I didn't feel loved, I felt bereft and hollow inside. My heart felt stomped on.

I couldn't breath as I gasped for breath on the side walk. I could barely sit straight as my body and mind wrecked havoc.

God, it hurt so much.

This was not how love was supposed to feel.

******

It was starting to become dark and I was still on the pavement. My tears had dried up and now I felt nothing. No sadness, no anger, no nothing, I felt like a body where all my organs had left me.

It was easy to say I was heart broken and it seemed the world had slowed down minute by minute. My world was turning on its axis and I just wished I didn't feel this way.

Walking home was a lot harder when it was difficult to move, difficult to stand up straight without wobbling and difficult to breath when the air felt so thick around me.

I was struggling, it was clear. I was lacking support and love from the people I needed it most from. I needed more than this, I needed something because the nothingness I felt during my time in Australia was fast approaching I would do anything to not go back to where I was before.

I needed my dad right now.

Once I got to my house, the lights were on throughout. The feeling of relief washed across my body. I couldn't be alone right now, no, isolation was the worst thing I could do.

I walked in to the house but heard talking almost straight away. In the living room sat my father, my mother and a police officer. The sight of his uniform was enough to make my heart crack that little bit more. Nick wore that outfit and he always looked so good in it.

I shook the thoughts away and appeared before my parents. They both looked to me, my father's arm around my mother and her eyes all tear strained and blotchy.

I hadn't seen my parents so close since their divorce many years ago.

"You okay, Cathy?" My father asked, his face looking concerned at my probably blotchy face. I couldn't speak, the lump in my throat growing bigger. Instead, I nodded and sat down on the arm chair which was vacant. The police officer standing in the middle of the room looked to me. I paid him no attention.

The officer started to tell my parents what he came here for.

"We're still researching and we've got a very good team working with us at the moment. They're checking to see whether John's death was a suicide or a killing." My mum made a noise at his words.

"Who would want to kill him?" She wailed. I looked to my father and he looked down as soon as I looked over. My eyes narrowed his way.

A killing? Could he have been murdered? By who?

"What are you suspecting so far?" Glenn asked. I watched him as he looked up to the police officer. It was evident to see he didn't give a shit about John. I was becoming suspicious.

"I can't tell you, I'm afraid. We haven't had much information back yet." The grey haired man replied. My father nodded.

After a few more minutes, the police officer left. My mother continued to sit on the sofa as she sobbed. And even though I wasn't upset about the news, I knew exactly how she was feeling. Her heart was breaking, she loved her husband, I gave her that, and now he was gone, she was obviously hurting.

Nick wasn't dead but I felt just as hollow without him as my mother felt without her husband.

I didn't know whether I could tell her yet what he did to me. How would she take it? This was already too much for her and I didn't want her to continue feeling like this. Not if she felt the same way I did. At the end of the day, she was my mother and I loved her dearly.

My father left my mother with a few soft words as he announced he was going to make coffee. Still feeling suspicious, I followed after him and closed the kitchen door behind me.

"Why are you closing the door?" He asked. I looked to him, my tear strained cheeks must have been evident. "What's wrong?" His concerned father look was straight back on his face.

The lump got bigger again and before I knew it, I was sobbing in my father's chest, forgetting the reason I came in here.

"What the hell's the matter?" He asked, his voice beginning to panic. "Has something happened?"

"He's left me." I sobbed as the tears kept coming. "He's gone."

"Who?" He asked. As if it finally clicked, he said "oh."

"Oh?" I cried. Oh was all he was going to give me?

"The fucking bastard." Glenn shot out. "I'm sorry, Birdie." He soothed. "Did he say why?"

"He said he's going to Italy for University as he had an offer, but without me." I said. "So he left me."

"He doesn't know what he's missing." My father replied. "It's his loss."

"You don't get it, dad." I snapped. "I love him."

"And he loves you, I know he does." My father stated. "He loves you more than anything."

"So why has he gone?"

My father couldn't answer, didn't answer. The room was filled with a silence and I was struggling to be silent right now. I wanted answers but it was clear to see I wasn't going to get any.

"Dad?" After a few moments of silence, I gathered his attention. "Did you kill him?" I was just going to be blunt. I wanted to know.

My father moved away in an instant. He looked to me with shock.

"Of course not!" He shot out. "I wanted him dead but I don't have a killing bone in my body." He looked appalled. "I thought about it but I would never have gone through with it, it was just a fantasy of mine."

"You just looked suspicious, that's all." I studied him but his face looked genuine. I couldn't see my father killing anyone either. It just wasn't in him.

"I'm just as shocked as you are at his death." He replied. He quickly turned his back to me and started to make the coffee.

"Dad-"

"I didn't kill him, Cathy, I swear."

"I believe you." I said, and I did. But John's death was the least of my worries.

"And you don't have to worry about Nick." He stated. "If you both love each other that much, you'll find a way back."

"But that's the thing, I don't know if he loves me. He said he did, but he's leaving me, what am I meant to think?" I asked.

"All you can do is believe him, Cathy." He said. "He's never been with a girl more than a week, let alone tell anyone he loves them. I don't know what's going on with him but what I do know is that that boy loves the socks off you. He'll make his way back to you, he will because that's how love works."

"And you're so sure?" I liked his hopeful thinking, I wish I could keep on to it and hold it close. But I was feeling negative about everything, I wasn't so sure he was ever going to come back to me.

I wanted him to.

"You don't move on quickly, I mean, look at me, I'm still in love with your mother even after all these years."

"You are?" I asked shocked.

"Of course I am, can't you tell?" I hadn't really looked at it closely, my mind had been else where since she came here.

I was still shocked to silence. My father still loved my mother? I guess it was easy to see. He had a lack of female companions, he never really talked about my mother but when he did it was always out of love and niceness, never bitterness. And when John came here, he hated him from the start without having any reason to at the beginning.

It had been years and he let her love someone else.

I couldn't let Nick love someone else. I couldn't watch him do that.

"And I need you to promise me something, Cathy." He said. He looked to me and I looked to him, listening. "You need to tell your mother what John did to you. You need to tell her everything."

I knew I had to some day, but the words still made my heart pound in my chest.

"She deserves to know and you deserve to tell her." He said. "This is your chance to move on, she's the only way you can."