The Decision

Nikki rolled the cell phone between her hands as she stared at the clock. Ten more minutes, yeah, she thought. She'd wait ten more minutes then she would call him. What could it hurt? Immediately the answer was obvious. The answer was her. It had been hurting her and another ten minutes would be just as painful if not more. She had to get it out of the way. If not for the pain, then for her sanity. She turned the phone over in her hands, number pad up, and used her thumbs to dial his ten-digits. She hesitated on the last number. The pad of her thumb gently rubbing the small blemish in the center of the key. Could she actually do this? Could she actually say what needed to be said? She slapped the phone shut against her palm, cursed, and tossed it to the opposite end of the couch. She hated him, almost as much as she loved him, but worse she was beginning to hate herself.

She stood up and paced the champagne colored carpet. When had she become this person? She always wrinkled her nose when girlfriends talked about waiting by the phone, running to his every beck and call, and so on. It had disgusted her. Now she was committing the worst sin of them all. She was changing her whole being, her morals, to what? To hope that he'd spend just a little of his time with her? That maybe he might stay true to his promises and they would be happy together some day. It was never gonna happen and she knew it.

She grabbed the phone from the couch, dialed his digits as fast as she could--so she wouldn't have time to rethink, and waited as the phone began to ring. Each ring making her heart pound a little harder. She bit her lip and fought not to hang up. His voice-mail picked up.

"It's Nik," she said into the mouth piece, as if he wouldn't already know. "I can't do this anymore. You were wrong. It wasn't that I wasn't strong enough to handle it. It's that Im not weak enough to put up with it. I love you, but I'm done." She snapped the phone shut. The easy part was over. The hard part was not picking up the phone again, to try and erase it all.