Bad at Endings.

Chapter 4

I hold on to a small sliver of hope that Mindy will just outright reject the last-minute party idea.
Sure, when it had just been John and I, his gaze drawing me in and making me forget all semblance of common sense and reason, it had been easy to agree.
To give him what he wanted.
All so I could just see him smile at me again.
When it comes down to it, I am rather weak after all.

But, alone in my bed at night, without the lovely vision of John to distract me, the whole plan hadn't seemed so great after all.
Not at all.
Not in the slightest.

I'm not really a 'party goer' at the best of times, let alone when it's a party where I don't really know or like anyone.
Well, anyone besides John.
And John won't really spend time with me once I'm there.
He hardly has the courage to even look at me when we're at school.
He needs a covert meeting on a bus-stop bench, the hood of his sweater drawn up so high I'm surprised he had still been able to see, just to muster up the courage to even speak to me.

This is going to be a disaster.

Why had John even invited me in the first place?
Why had he even decided to talk to me?
Why is everything so complicated between us now when it used to be so simple and easy?

Does the geographical location really make all the difference when it comes to what you feel for someone?
It doesn't for me.
I still feel the same way about John as I did when it was just the two of us on a beach in the summer sun.

And I really hate that I do.

I wish I could just turn my feelings off.
Especially after the way he's been treating me these last couple of weeks.
Drawing me in only to push me away again moments later. Like a flash flood that hits the shore. Drowning and destroying whatever it finds lying around on the unsuspecting beach only to retreat again moments later. Unbothered and unharmed. The proof of its actions hidden away deep within the sediment.
He confuses me in a way he never did before.

Once again I remind myself that I might not have known him as well as I thought I did.
Two weeks is not a long time.
Not at all.
Not by a long shot.

I should ask him.
Ask him once and for all what it is that he wants.
Why he does what he does.
If he wants me.
Still....wants me.

But I wouldn't know how to ask him....or when.....or where.
I'm afraid that if I confront him outright he will panic and reject me straight away.

That he will run.

Just like I had done to him.

Maybe I do understand him a little bit after all.

Maybe John and I are not as different as I had initially thought we were.
Maybe we're just both phenomenally bad at.......whatever this is.

I really shouldn't go to that party Saturday.

Maybe Mindy won't want to come.
I can't go if Mindy is not going.
I'll be totally alone then.
John will understand if that's the reason. Surely he will.

I sigh.
My breath leaves my heavy chest on whispered wings and disappears into the inky night that cloaks the bedroom around me.

I should really try and get some sleep.

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