Perhaps I had been lying to myself when I said I loved him. I wanted to love him; I wanted even more for him to love me, and yet I was standing in front of him, moments after having broken up with him. His face was completely stiff, which was further proof that he didn’t care. I wanted him to care though, more than anything; I wanted him to give me some sign that this was all worth something.

“You’re going to be lonely without me,” he said firmly, as if there were someway I would change my mind.

“No,” I replied, “I’m lonely with you. You have no idea how hard it is to be by you when I know that you will never,” I let the word hang in the air for a few moments, “never care about me the way I care about you.”

He placed his arm around my waist and I felt sick to my stomach, as if I were about to cry or scream or something. He was so easy to like, but impossible to love. He had cheated on me. How could I have even considered taking him back?

“Aren’t you going to miss me?” he asked, and I looked up at him as he sighed heavily, and wrapped his other hand around my waist and pulled me in closer. I smelled his cigarette breath and his familiar lips faintly glistened, reminding me that those were the same lips, which had been pressed against my best friend’s just a few days ago.

“I am going to miss the way how every time you sigh, I blush. I am going to miss the way that you avert making eye contact with me whenever you compliment me. I am going to miss your arm around me and I am going to miss your love, but there is no way that I will miss you.”

He pulled me in closer and leaned in to kiss me. His shaggy hair fell onto my face as he got closer, and I caught a whiff of his cologne, which smelled kind of like my mom’s spice cabinet. His lips were parted, just moments away from caressing mine.

It would have been so easy to move my face forward, and it would have been equally as easy to pull back from him. I was exactly half past the moment of no return. I knew if I kissed him now that I would just be falling deeper into his trap, that it would be my form of commitment to play his game.

I placed my hands on his familiar face. It wasn’t completely shaven, but it wasn’t rough either. I had missed being able to feel his heartbeat with my fingertips and the way that his jaw moved.

I let my lips touch his in an overly indulgent way. Before I knew it, I was being sucked back in to all his lies, all the broken promises, and all the hopes I had once had for our relationship. All the times I waited by the phone like my life depended on it, and all the times he let me down.

I pulled back, and stared at the face, which I had fallen in love with and the face, which I had come to hate.

“So are we good, kid?” he asked in a condescending way. I looked down, carefully avoiding his glance.

“No.”

“What do you mean Kitten?” He laughed, “You know I love you babe.”

I turned my back on him, and started to walk away without knowing where I was headed for the first time. He fell into my trap this time. This time he was my prisoner. This time, I was lost, and I was free.