Running in Circles - Lexie Grey x OC

Running in Circles

They stood quietly in the middle of the garden, neither willing to look at the other.

Fear.

Regret.

Disappointment.

It had been a long time since they had stood this close, and the last time they had, things hadn't ended well.

Promises had been broken. Hurtful words had been exchanged—words they both regretted, words neither of them could take back. She had been left standing in the middle of the road, crying as she watched him walk away.

After that, they had drifted.

Further and further apart, until somehow, two people who had once known each other better than anyone had learned how to become strangers.

And now they were here again.

Standing only a few feet apart.

Unable to cross the distance between them.

The silence stretched.

Once, the sound of the other's voice had been enough to make their hearts flutter, their pulses race, their breaths catch.

Now even silence had the power to break them.

She looked at him first.

He was staring at the ground, his brow deeply furrowed. There was sadness in his eyes. Pain, too. Even after all this time, she could still recognize it.

She just didn't know how they had gotten here.

Once, she had been so certain they were glued together.

Now it was almost impossible to reach him.

He had rebuilt the wall around himself—the same wall he had torn down for her months before, brick by brick, just enough to let her in.

He had given her everything he knew how to give.

He had opened himself to feeling when, for most of his life, feeling had been something to control. She had made him believe he was capable of more than that. So he had let himself have it.

All of it.

And she had hurt him badly enough that the walls came back twice as high.

All she could see in his eyes now was pain and anger.

God, how she missed his smile.

She missed the way he used to look at her as though she were the only person in the room. The way his attention would find her without trying. The warmth in his eyes whenever she caught him staring.

Now he couldn't even look at her.

She would have given anything to see him smile at her again.

But that smile wasn't hers anymore.

And she knew whose fault that was.