“Why?” She shot at him. She stepped back to be farther away from him. She couldn’t focus with him so close, “Why now?”
“I—I—I don’t...I don’t know,” he stammered.
“Well that’s just great,” she looked to the night sky as if it might hold the answers she was demanding. It was silent for a minute—maybe two. The only sound was the distant voices by the bonfire. A cool breeze blew by them and she took a deep breath, finally meeting his gaze. “Do you know how hard it’s been?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but she silenced him with the motion of her hand.
“Do you understand how hard I’ve had to work to get my brain to stop thinking about you everyday? How many times I wanted to bang my head against the wall because I woke up thinking of you again? Do you realize that I dreamt of you choosing me at least once a week, and then it was down to once a month and then I’d finally gotten to a point when those dreams were only as frequent as those awful nightmares I told you about—they only happened every few months and I could recover with a quick mental pep talk,” she paused.
She couldn’t look him in the eye, so she chose to look at the pond a few yards away before she continued, “And now? Do you know what that did to me? I had to start all over again. I had to remind myself to stop wishing for you, because you were in love with someone else and I had to move on. I couldn’t go on like that anymore. It was ripping me apart inside. There were other guys that were interested, but I couldn’t bring myself care. Believe me, I tried, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You have been ruining my life for almost two years now, you know that? Two years. When I met you, you were dating a different girl and you were already ruining my life,” she threw her hands in the air, surrendering to what she would say next, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m letting you go. Not because I want to. Because I have to. Because if I don’t, I’ll never be able to let my heart love again. And, while I want to blame you, I know it’ll be my own fault. My own self destruction. That’s the part that frustrates me the most. I can’t even blame you. I can only blame myself for, once again, longing for someone who doesn’t want me.”
His whole body tensed. He looked like a statue and for a minute she wondered if he was even breathing. The silence returned and she shivered against another midnight breeze.
She wrapped her arms around herself as protection against more than just the night wind—as if the very action could protect her heart too. Then, when she couldn’t take the quiet any longer, she mustered all her strength and started walking away.
She had to walk by him to get back to the fire and as she did so, she wanted to tell him that she was sorry—that she shouldn’t have put all of that on him. But her strength was failing her. Her knees were threatening to give way and she needed to get out of his sight before they buckled.
Just as she was getting out of ear shot she heard him speak.
His voice was so quiet and weak that for a moment she worried she’d imagined him speaking. She kept herself absolutely still, afraid that even the smallest movement would break whatever trance she was in—cause her to wake up from this dream. Any minute now her alarm would go off.
But she heard him step closer and felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t fight for me. I was so sick of the people I cared about not giving a crap about me. She was making the effort. She was trying and...and she was closer. It’s still long distance, but four hours is a lot less than ten where driving is concerned. At least she was in the same time zone. I know I screwed up. I should never have started anything when I was still talking to you. But then when it all ended you didn’t seem bothered by it, anyway.”
“I told you it bugged me,” she sounded small almost as if she was afraid that if she spoke any louder or with any sort of tone, he might walk away.
She nodded as she turned toward him. “When you said we would be better as friends, I told you I had wanted to punch you, but that my bark was bigger than my bite anyway.”
His hand slid from her shoulder to rest at his side. “I thought you were just joking.”
She let out a laugh—a harsh, wet laugh. Her eyes were shining in the moonlight as tears threatened to fall, “Yeah, I guess I can see how that would come across as being unbothered, but you have no idea how much I’ve had to master that. The pretending I was fine and it was no big deal while my entire world was crashing down and the life I’d been envisioning was shattered into pieces and there was nothing, nothing I could do about it. So I’m sorry that you thought I was fine. But I wasn’t. I haven’t been. For a long time. I considered muting both of you on everything because I couldn’t take it. My heart broke every single time you posted about each other and I’d been working so hard to piece it back together.”
He fell silent once again, so she kept going.
“And I didn’t contact you after that because I knew how she’d take it. I’m related to her, after all. I didn’t want to make her hate me just because I didn’t want to stop being your friend. I didn’t. I liked talking to you and I think that’s honestly what I missed the most. I could tell you anything without fearing any judgment. I missed having someone to talk to that I knew could get me to smile even when I wanted to be negative and bitter. I missed having you as a friend, though I suppose we both had other ideas the whole time—up to the end.” She turned her face away to hide the tears she couldn’t hold back any longer.
“I had no idea. I thought I was just a rebound or...or I don’t know a—a filler.”
She swept at the tears running down her cheeks. “I had passed the point of needing or wanting just a rebound or a fling and if you asked anyone that knows me, you’d find out that’s not how I work anyway.”
“I don’t waste people’s time unless I see it going somewhere. I don’t just talk to someone or string people along just so I don’t have to be alone while I wait for something better. That’s not fair. To me or to them.”
“So, wait, you actually truly and genuinely had feelings for me?”
She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, “Yes, you idiot! Do you want to know how many guys I’ve used pick up lines on?”
He raised his eyebrows, encouraging her to go on as a smirk played at the corner of his mouth.
“One.” She watched his face as this information sank in.
“I’m guess that’s me,” he paused for confirmation and once she’d nodded he added, “What I don’t understand is why that’s significant for you.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever used a pickup line on because you’re the only person who ever let me feel comfortable enough to do it!”
“The last guy I dated made me feel like I had to hide a piece of myself in his presence, but you? I could be one hundred percent of who I was with you. I didn’t have to pretend with you. I could be real. I could be the person I knew I was without the fear of being reprimanded or feeling like I was some freak of nature that needed fixed.”
“Wait, what?” The question came out harsh and when she snuck a peak at his face, she found his eyes imploring her to tell him it wasn’t true. That no one had ever made her feel that, but she couldn’t lie about it. It had happened.
“That’s a real thing. I was told I needed to fix myself.” She shrugged as if that would make it less of the gut punch it was.
His eyes showed the rage he was holding back. They flickered toward the fire where the boy that had said it was no doubt trying to “fix” some other girl. “You never told me—“
“We didn’t exactly get into all the details in the month we talked. I tried to learn more about you, but you seemed guarded and distant. Plus I was scared of opening up. You kept talking about all these other girls that liked you and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it was only a matter of time before I wasn’t good enough anymore.”
Silence settled between them again. It was only a few seconds, but it felt like years before he finally spoke. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, “Me too.”
Then she walked away. This time he couldn’t stop her and he didn’t try. He had somethings to figure out for himself. She shouldn’t have to wait for him to decide whether she was worthy. So she wouldn’t. But that didn’t mean he would stop trying to prove himself to her.
And he would succeed. That much, he’d decided, he knew. He would prove himself to be worth more than anyone else who looked at her. If she would let him.
