She wore a long black skirt that went down to her ankles, her pale pink blouse skin tight, showed off her perfect figure.  Her hair was loose and shiny, her makeup heavier than I remembered, and absolutely striking.

She was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever set eyes on.  I knew she always would be.

“Holy shit,” Todd muttered.

“That chick is gorgeous,” Trinity said.

Danika began to walk through the door, and my fists clenched.

“Oh my God,” Trinity continued, in dawning horror.  “Is that her?”

I didn’t respond, couldn’t, caught up in my own personal hell as I saw her struggle to make it just a few feet to sit down at a table.

Have you ever felt like someone just reached into your chest and twisted a corkscrew into your heart?  No?  Well, that’s what I felt then.

It wasn’t f**king pretty.

I reeled for an endless moment, as I saw just what I’d done, and tried to cope with it, trying to breathe for even another moment, to live in a skin that I despised down to my soul.

I didn’t even realize I’d moved to her until I was at her table.  My body had moved with no tangible communication to my brain.

She barely looked at my face, just one devastating, cursory glance before her eyes became glued to my chest.

Oh God.  She can’t even stand to look at me now.  I felt gutted by that.  This was going worse than my most dreadful fears.

I stared at her for the longest time, drinking her in, willing her to just look at me.

Finally, I shook myself out of it.  “Can I get you anything?  Coffee or tea?”

The finest tremor ran through her, but it stopped between one second and the next.  I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it or manufactured it, since I myself was shaking.

“Some hot tea, thank you,” she finally answered stiffly.

I went to the counter and ordered two teas, watching her all the while.

She didn’t look at me once.

I brought the tea back to the table, and she nodded her thanks, staring down into her cup.  She added a sugar packet and stirred it.

“Milk?” I asked.

She shook her head, adding more sugar.  She didn’t drink it, just focused on it.

I shoved my own neglected tea to the side.

I put my hands on the table, fingers threaded together.  I stared down at them as intently as she stared at her tea.  I took a very deep breath, gathering my courage.

“I have many regrets, many bad things I must take credit for, but believe me when I say that the negative impact that all of my actions have had on your life is my biggest one.”  I had rehearsed this speech.  I doubted I would have been able to say it without breaking down otherwise.

Finally, I felt her eyes on me, but now I didn’t have the strength to meet them.  I knew I’d find nothing I could bear in them.

I wished she’d say something, anything, but when it was clear that she wouldn’t, I continued.  “I do not deserve your forgiveness, after all that’s happened, but I am asking for it.”

Begging, I thought.

Groveling.

“Know that I would take it all back if I could, and know that I hold myself responsible for all of the bad things that happened.  I am so sorry that my hitting rock bottom the way I did impacted you.  Any recompense you can imagine, anything you would ask of me, I would be happy to provide.”  Please, I thought.  Ask me for something, anything.  Let me give and you take.  Let me have some role in your life again.  “I’m at your service.  Always, Danika.  And it is my most sincere wish that someday, perhaps over time, you might consider being my friend again.”

Her hand went to her throat, and she shuddered, as though in revulsion.

I shuddered in pain.

She was that disgusted with me now that even the idea of a friendship with me made her recoil?

“Tristan,” she said slowly, her voice hoarse.  “Consider yourself forgiven.  But please don’t think that I hold you responsible for everything that happened.”

I was filled, for the briefest moment, with the strongest feeling of elation.

“Things didn’t turn out how I could have hoped,” she continued.  “But no one person is to blame for any of it.  So yes, I forgive you for any and all of it.”

Joy, wonder, the biggest spark of hope filled my chest.

Her next words made pain, horror, denial, follow closely in their wake.

“That being said, I must decline your offer of friendship.  Some things…what I mean to say is, some people, need to stay away from each other, and we are such a pair.”

No, no, no, I thought.  Anything but that.  Don’t cut me off completely.  I can take anything but that.

But I saw the resolve in the set of her shoulders.

I saw the end in her downcast eyes.

The very least I could do is give her what she so clearly wanted.  I did not have the right to fight her on this.  Not after all I’d done.

“If that is how you feel, I must respect your decision.”  Those words didn’t want to come out of me, but I forced them out.

“It is,” she said quickly.  “But thank you for the apology, and I wish you all the best.”  She spoke to my collarbone.  “I’m glad you got yourself help.”

She was done.  That was all she was going to say.  I couldn’t quite believe it, but I made myself accept it.