Her hand lifted up in a gentle wave, and she waited until she heard the door clicking, because she couldn't see whether it was really closed or not. She didn't need him peeking.
The moment she heard the lock click, that grin collapsed into something haggard and sad. She slogged down until her body laid on the bed, and stilled for several minutes, as the reality of what happened sank in.
He didn't like her like that. Maebe took that as the first important anecdote to pull from the experience, and her heart throbbed with the finality of his honesty.
He had been willing to date her
despite not feeling anything for her. When she thought of that, she found a little spark of anger bouncing around in her tender heart, but it never found kindling with which to feed and grow. It died, after a few moments, because it was impossible to hate him when she still loved him so much.
So she considered other things. Like how terrible that date would have gone. Christ, she'd dodged a bullet there. He would have tried to be gentlemanly, and compliment her, and hold her hand, and make her think she was special. And then - whoosh. This heartache was nothing compared to how shitty that would have felt.
And she thought about how honest they'd been with one another. How mature she'd handled the entire situation. How
different this was to anything else in her life. That was good. They'd done good. And after some time, they'd be back to normal, as if nothing had happened.
But none of that stopped her from putting her pillow slowly over her head, and wracking her body with sobs that
had to come no matter
how much worse it could have been. Because Dawson didn't like her, and she thought that would have been enough to make her let go. So she cried, because it was a desperate attempt to let go. She cried, and cried, and cried, until the exhaustion overtook her, and she fell asleep with the soaked pillow covering her head.
She only hoped that letting herself cry would be enough to let go.
Because she needed to let go.
