Keep it wet

It didn’t mean that anything they had lived was meaningless. No, on the contrary. Everything they had gone through together was going to be kept forever in her memory and heart, it would be remembered dearly. From the moment she walked into the room and saw him, almost barely, at first, her eyes far more focused on not tripping over her own two feet, her arms balancing four books as she made her way over to her desk. 

It was easy to forget everything around her when she was trying to keep her body upright, but he had made sure that she wouldn’t forget about him. A simple hello and a kind smile. That was all it took for her to ignore everything else around her, all the books she had sitting in front of her, all the whispers around the room. Suddenly, all she could see was a pair of bright whiskey eyes, brown hair, and the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. It was contagious like he was truly reaching into the depths of her soul and bringing it to the light, the same one he was under. It was impossible to keep a straight face at that sight.

From his boyish way to his kind heart, she was hooked. There was no one else in the world that could pull her away from the spell he had seemed to cast on her. It was pure, it was unintentional, but completely not overlooked and meaningless. Her heart would beat a hundred miles per hour whenever he walked into the room, her palms clammy, her face red. It was unbelievable how she would react to the mere image of the boy walking down the hallway, his backpack slung over his shoulder and the cheeky smile trained on his lips. 

If it would be anyone else, Y/N would say that it was fake, but it couldn’t be applied to him. That was the way he was, who he chose to be to everyone around him. He was friendly, he was genuine, he was… he was himself. And she couldn’t help but feel herself getting more and more attracted to him, like the opposite poles of two magnets. It was inevitable.

She could remember, almost to perfection, the way he sounded when she first talked to him, his eyes running all over the place while he tried to say something, anything at all. He was fidgeting with his hands, tangling and untangling his fingers together, opening and closing his mind like a fish out of the water. It was cute and something she would be doing in his place. At the same time, she wanted him to say something, she wanted him to just ignore her because there was no way she was going to be able to say anything back to him.

First crushes work in a funny way. It seems like the most serious problem like you’re walking down the aisle when you find yourself walking the same steps as your crush. Y/N felt that. She would try and change her path every time she saw him standing at the end of the hallway, but the truth was that she needed to walk past him every single day. And every time, he was there, looking right back at her with a smile on his face, head turning the other way whenever she caught him, a wave of goodbye when he needed to go.

It was pure and innocent, much like everything at the time and Y/N only craved for more smiles, more looks. Nothing else. It was enough for her.

A single tear slid down her right cheek that afternoon, the memories hitting her harder than she thought they would. Although everything between them had started slowly, they had found a way to keep each other’s presence, to finally take the next step. They had been together for four years and nothing would change that. 

But it was time to say goodbye. It was time to put an end to what had felt like the most beautiful dream. High school couples don’t last forever, right? So why did it feel like she was doing the worst mistake of her life?

From his room, Dylan couldn’t stop pacing around, his hands running over his hair, breaths coming out of him in a short pace, his steps echoing through the second store of the house, his door locked from the outside. He had to beg his sister to do it or he would break his promise and run after her, there was no point in pretending otherwise. In the whole hour he had been there, Dylan thought about at least thirty ways of talking his way out of his room or just jumping out of the window, not caring about the consequences. 

Why had they agreed on such bullshit? Why had they agreed on breaking up when neither of them was ready for it? So many people could handle the long-distance, why couldn’t they try it too? A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him that it would be too selfish. It would be selfish to prevent her from doing everything she wanted to, it was selfish to try and ‘lock’ her on a relationship that was doomed, it was selfish to not let her live her life at its full potential.

It would hurt, it already did, but he had to move on, he had to believe that the universe would hold on to them and bring them together again. It was too much to ask at the moment and Dylan knew it, but he had to think of something to get himself distracted from the way his heartfelt, from the unstoppable pain that seemed to creep upon him. It was going to be hard, but he could do it.

His eyes fell on the picture sitting on his bedside table, the frame keeping it safe from the dust and, in a fluid movement, he was holding the object in his hands in a soft way, almost like caressing it. She had her head tilted to the side, looking at him and trying to hold back a smile. He remembered that day. It was summer and they had been chilling in his backyard, the tree shadow being used as a way to keep themselves refreshed. He had told her a silly joke, he couldn’t even remember the punchline anymore, and she was trying really hard not to laugh, saying it was just ridiculous. Of course it was, that was what he was aiming for. And yet she couldn’t help the giggle that erupted from her lips, as much as she tried to. That picture was snapped just a few seconds before it, courtesy of Dylan’s sister.