'I lied, Ig.'

'I used to really hate people who say things they don't mean. Now I don't, not that much anymore. Because I kinda had to do it too, sometimes. And I don't even feel guilty about it,' said Nina. She looked at me and I knew that she was going to break my heart, but I waited for it anyway. 'I even did it to you.'

'Nina, it's OK,' I said. But God, dear God, it definitely is not.

'You wanna know which was it?' she asked with that honest smile of hers on her face. And the pieces of her broken heart glowed crestfallenly in her tears. That was when I began to hate myself. For the damage I had caused her. For the years of pain she had to endure.

'It's alright, Nina. You don't have to,' I replied. I just didn't wanna know. It was going to hurt me and that was not a problem. But it was going to hurt her more than anything else in the world and I would never forgive myself for the rest of my life. Because the last person on earth I would hurt for no reason would be her. And because that's exactly what I'd been doing to her for God knows how many years.

She was still smiling. 'I want, to, Ig. You deserve the truth.'

I desperately wanted to take her into my arms and save her from the world, be her hero for this once and for always but hey, you and I both know she'd definitely be safer away from me. A lot safer. I didn't want her to go on and hurt herself. I didn't want her to regret anything. But above all I just didn't wanna be the reason for her latest heartbreak. I'd been exactly that for so many times already it was starting to kill me, because she had been such an angel to me and that's the understatement of the century.

'Nina, stop,' I said. 'That's enough.' That surely was. I didn't wanna hear it. I didn't think I could take it. Yes, I am a coward. I hope you're happy reading that.

'I told you I didn't care about Dewi, Torrence, Nevaeh, Thuraya -

'I'll take you home. Come,' I said, halting her attempt to destroy I-don't-know-what. But maybe I was just frightened to the core of my soul of what it was going to be. The fear and the length of the list of girls. Hell, what was I thinking?

'I lied, Ig,' she forced herself to say, and began to really cry. Her voice came out half-whispered, but her tears were streams of fake smiles she had kept frozen within her all these years. Today they were melting. Profusely. And I was the reason. I should be the one wearing the broken pieces of my heart on my face. But I doubt that it would even be half as painful as what she was going through right now.

'Nina, please.' Really. I didn't know know what else to do. I know I had a lot to say about the people who had made her sad before. I'd said some really nasty stuff about them just to see her smile again and those came effortlessly to me because it was easy as hell to bash people who did things to the person you love. It had been easy because the people she was angry at were people I'd never even met; people I knew nothing of. But what if the person who makes her cry is you? How do you even begin to curse yourself without knowing if that would even fix anything?

'I lied.' She was crying. She was crying her heart out, hard. And I began to die inside.

I watched as her small being broke into unrecognizable fragments in front of me, hating myself more and more by each and every second for not having the strength to save her the way she had saved me a million times before, for not being able to bring the smile that had brought life to me when I was dying back to her, for not having the guts to be as honest as she was, for - every single thing I did and every single word I said that had driven her to this. For everything. God. Everything.

Because today I realized that this woman who was breaking in front me, had never shed even one tear in my presence for the past twelve years of our acquaintance while I had been loading onto her small shoulders every chance I got, my fears, my heartbreaks, and all my nonsense! Because she had appeared, no, she had been so strong like she could carry the world on one shoulder and all the ugly things in it on the other. And because I had been so stupid - to not realize that half of the world she was carrying was made of me as half of my world was made of her and we would have been the happiest two people madly in love if I had been just slightly smarter - she was disintegrating beyond repair and I still couldn't find a thing to say to stop it. I was that stupid, you guys. I really was.

'Nina.' It took a lot to let that out. I swear. You wouldn't know what it was like. Like a rock being thrust out from your throat wasn't even a match to it. The guilt. God.

She didn't stop. No. She wasn't going to stop. So, I had to do this. 

'Nina,' I tried again. Here it goes. 'I lied, too.' Alright. Now, there was no turning back. I could only go forward from here. We, Nina and I, could only go forward from here. If there was a future for us. I'd pray for nothing else from now onwards, Nina. Nothing else. Just you.

But she was still crying.

'I said I didn't care about Hadi and you -

Sniff. 'What?' Sob. Sniff. Sob.

'I said I lied,' I repeated.

'What?' Uh-oh.

'Nina, I -


You wanna guess what happened after that?