"I think we need to talk." She said folding her arms as she stopped after entering his house.
Those five words, uttered with a quiet finality, were the first tremors of the earthquake that was about to shatter Xavier's world. He looked up from the TV, a half-eaten pizza slice in his hand, a casual, lazy smile on his face. "Sure, what's up?" Standing up but didn't walk to her because of the sad expression on her face.
She didn't smile back. Her expression was a mask of practiced sadness, a look he had seen on her face before when a friend's dog had passed away or a sad movie had ended. It was a look that always made him want to pull her into his arms, but tonight, it felt like a wall, he couldn't see her.
"I'm leaving, Miles," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
He dropped the pizza slice, a greasy splat on the coffee table, but he didn't even notice. "Leaving? What do you mean, leaving? Did I do something wrong? We can fix it, right? I'll do anything. I'll change—"
"No, Xav. It's not you. Not entirely." She took a deep breath, and her eyes, once filled with a spark that ignited his soul, now looked away, unable to meet his gaze. "I've met someone else."
The words hit him like a physical blow. The air was sucked out of his lungs, and the world tilted on its axis. He stumbled back, bumping into the arm of the sofa. "Someone else? Who? How long?"
"For a while now," she admitted, her voice cracking as she continued. "He's...he's everything I've been looking for. He understands me in a way you never could."
"In a way I never could?" His voice rose, the casual, lazy smile replaced by a look of disbelief and hurt. "We've been together for five years, Jenna! I gave you everything! My time, my heart, my damn soul!" His voice cracking, veins popping out of his neck, he felt his body now incomplete.
"I know, Xav, and I'm sorry," she said, her voice still painfully soft. "I'm so sorry. I tried to make it work, I really did."
"Who is this man? Do I know him?" He questioned still in grief but a part of him wanted to murder the man who has stolen his precious gem from him, she was there by his side and now the only human he had left but now, she found another solace in another man, he felt his seat of life completely shattered when he heard the name....
"Wales Carter." Her voice calm and warm as she uttered the name from her delicate lips.
"Wales Carter?!" His eyes widened in shock, he was the man always on his neck, trying to kill him everytime he was sighted, the most richest young man in the city and the most cunny and notorious of them all. "You are with Wales Carter! You didn't even see a better human but you choose that beast and you know his my enemy!" He bellowed, all the pains going above his head as she tell at her.
"But...but I'm in love with him."
He felt the rage bubbling up inside him, a hot, acrid taste in his mouth as he stood up swiftly. "Love? You think this is love? Cheating on me, lying to my face for months, and you call it love? What is he, a god? Some perfect man who can give you everything I can't?" His eyebrow twitching in fury as he scowled at her in horror, 'of all the girls who could kill themselves for him why her?' he thought in anger.
"He's not perfect," she said, finally meeting his gaze, a flicker of defiance in her eyes. "He just...he's the one. I'm sorry, Xavier Winkler. I really am. I hope you can be happy someday."
And with that, she walked out, leaving him alone in the quiet apartment, the scent of her perfume lingering in the air, the cold, greasy slice of pizza on the coffee table a stark reminder of the perfect evening that had just been torn to shreds. He stood there for a long time, the silence deafening, the anger building into a furious storm inside him, a storm that was about to turn his world upside down and send him on a path of self-destruction.
The apartment, once a sanctuary of shared laughter and late-night whispers, was now a tomb.
He sat down burying his head on his hand, shaking it in grief with tears cascading down his eyes to his hands, whimpering softly, "why?!" The silence that followed her departure was a physical weight, pressing in on him, suffocating him. He sat like that for a long time in the center of the living room, a monument to a love that had just died. The sight of the half-eaten pizza slice, a symbol of the perfect evening that had been so brutally interrupted, finally broke him.
A roar of pure, unfiltered rage tore from his throat "AHHHH!". He swept his arm across the coffee table, sending the pizza box, beer bottles, and discarded remote controls crashing to the floor in a symphony of shattering glass and plastic making his sitting room to end up in a mess. The fury was a fire in his veins, burning away all rational thought, all sense of reason. He stumbled out of the apartment, the door slamming shut behind him with a final, echoing bang.
He ended up at a restaurant, a dark and cozy place that was supposed to be a refuge from the storm in his head. But the whiskey he ordered, glass after glass, wasn't a comfort; it was fuel for the fire. The world began to swim in a hazy blur of distorted colors and slurred conversations. He ranted to no one and everyone about her, about the man who had stolen her, his voice a low, venomous growl. The words were a bitter cocktail of insults and accusations directed at the man she had chosen over him.
Hours later, the restaurant had emptied out, leaving him alone with his rage and the burning liquid in his gut. He stumbled out into the cool night air, the world spinning in a disorienting, drunken spiral. He just wanted to go home, to forget, but his legs, guided by some primal, destructive instinct, carried him down the street and into a narrow, dimly lit alley.
There he saw him. Her new boyfriend, the "perfect" man, stood with a group of men, their faces a mix of street-hardened indifference and cruel amusement. "Hey!" Xavier shouted, his voice a distorted, slurred cry. "You took her! You took her from me!"
The man turned, a smirk on his face and he remembered the state the deplorable man was and he giggled.
"What are you laughing at you piece of shit!? You've destroyed my life and I'm going to destroy yours!" Xavier yelled at him, but Wales kept a cool demeanor still leaning on the wall. He said nothing, but the group of men with him started to laugh, their cruel voices echoing off the brick walls of the alley.
They surrounded Xavier, like a pack of wolves circling their prey. Blow after blow rained down on him, a flurry of fists and kicks that left him dazed and bleeding.