why aren't you trying to stop me (Part 8)

If Abbey had noted his progress down the hall she would have seen Highfield make his way out the back, into the stillness. Highfield wanted to smoke. He didn't turn on the light. In his minds eye he was back in the night before, as he enhaled. Back when Abbey had dragged her drowned-rat arse around the corner, into the courtyard and into his life. He exhaled and listened to the sounds of traffic, reasuringly a block or more away. He wanted her, didn't see any problem with being honest with himself. The problem for them was he wasn't ready. His body could take a one-night affair or a few casual rolls in the hay, (he felt his blood quicken at the thought) emotionally, after the last 18 months, he knew he wasn't the man he used to be and worse - couldn't picture himself being anything other than self serving in a relationship. His tattered heart needed time to mend. Highfield had been genuinely shocked when the wife he loved had asked for a divorce. He didn't pretend to understand women and he thought he couldn't quite handle the musings of this one - Abbey was headstrong and beautiful, such a woman was altogether too much of a handful for what he felt to be his emotionally exhausted self. Drawing in his cigarette Highfield imagined that the path least painful for them both, was the path of least resistance, creating distance, with or without telling her so.