thursday september 20th

she looked nervous, she looked exhausted, but to him, she still looked beautiful. she sat up straight in her bed when he came in, mentally preparing the words she needed to say to him, the ones that had been cycling around her head since she arrived in the white room.

"" he walked over and took her hand, sitting down next to her on the bed. ""

his words died on his lips when she reached out and put a hand on his cheek, thumb moving gently back and forth. their eyes met and without a moment's hesitation their lips did too. his hand came up to cradle her face, while her other found her waist. time stopped, everything was finally perfect, until he tasted the salt of her tears.

he pulled away, keeping her face between his palms, ""

she took a shaky deep breath, "i can't do this."

those were the last words he expected to hear. he grabbed her hands and looked her straight in the eyes. ""

"carter, stop. the fans and the no privacy, and the distance i can't do it. that's your life, not mine. maybe if things were different we could be together, but they aren't. we've both been fooling ourselves into thinking this could work, we both know it won't. i'm not asking you to change anything for me, you love what you do too much and i could never live with myself if i took that away from you. i love you, so i'm asking you to give up on this, for both our sakes. the longer we drag this out the more it's going to hurt."

""

"on paper, but not in real life."

he stood up and dropped her hands, his pain turning to anger, ""

"you've built me up in your head to be this perfect person who's going to fix everything that you hate in your life. i'm just a person. and maybe you can handle the spotlight, but i can't. look at me carter, we're in a fucking hospital right now."

he knew she had every right to fell the way she did, but it didn't make her words hurt any less. he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out what had started everything. "" he threw her journal on the table next to her bed, ""

she had told him to leave and he left.

he cried.

so did she.