Fractured Light

I hate you, she said.  She looked him in the eye.  I hate you.
         She gazed at him steadily, from behind the frames of her glasses.  Those frames she had hidden behind for so long.  But no more.
         You are nothing.  She wanted him to know it.
         I don’t need you.
         The words she had once choked back rose to the surface with the force of a flaming arrow shot from a bow.
         You’re arrogant, you’re stupid!  You never cared about me.  You fooled me.  But I won’t be fooled by you, never again. 
         Her eyes remained connected with his, although she felt like running away.  Her wool scarf seemed to strangle her when it had once served to protect her.
         You are nothing now, she said.  I loved you once.  I really did.  I know you don’t believe that though.  You thought I was too juvenile and naïve to be in love.  I might have been young but I did love you.  As much as I wish I never had, I admit it.  I did.  And I regret every day I wasted on you.
         The fire rose again, and this time it ripped through his silence like wildfire.
         You couldn’t stand the fact that you meant something to me, could you?  You didn’t want anything real; you wanted a fling.  A stupid rebound fling.  When you realized I actually cared about you, you ran.  You ran so damn far but still managed to act like such a big person.
         You said you wanted to be friends.  You apologized for hurting me.  You fed me lines and lines of bull shit.  But you know what?  You never once gave me one damn reason for running.  Not once.  You couldn’t own up to it.  You didn’t have the guts to just say why. 
         She glared.
         I know why.  You didn’t have it in you.  You don’t have any of the decency or courage or sympathy that you pretend you have.  You don’t have any of it.  You’re a damned coward. 
         Even now he didn’t speak.  Coward, she repeated in her head.  The word seemed to echo over and over.  The reverberations in her mind gave her a cynic confidence.
         You know all it would have taken was four words, she said.  I don’t love you, that’s all you had to say.  Would have spared me more than all your stupid lies.  Might have salvaged some tiny part of something.
         It doesn’t matter now though.  I hate you, and now that’s all there’ll ever be. 
         Her reflection stared bitterly back at her.  He hadn’t heard, and he never would.
         I hate you, she repeated to no one.