That Summer Feeling: SUMMER 4EVER [H.S.]

44. ..That's Where I Am

You might hate me for this...

..but I didn't ask him about those texts. Not right away anyway.

Initially, I wanted to ease into the conversation and not act like I was interrogating him or something. I wasn't accusing him of anything. I don't know the context behind those texts— I wasn't even supposed to know about them in the first place. The first ten minutes of us back on the highway was me sitting next to him, sweating with guilt and heavily conflicted if I should even be angry or nervous or scared or worried or if I should feel anything at all.

It was pretty funny actually. Like in a twisted, dark humor kind of way. There's Harry in the driver's seat drumming his fingertips along the steering wheel, humming along to Stevie Nicks' voice with the sun shining on him in a golden shower of fucking sun rays. And then sitting next to him in the passenger's seat was me profusely sweating through his hoodie, nervously chewing on a plastic neon yellow straw from a 7-Eleven Slurpee, hidden away from the sun and applying glue as chapstick as I contemplate opening the door and jumping out to see if I can catch up to the party bus somewhere down the road.

I wanted to ease into the awkward confrontation of "So I saw someone named Sage texting you a 'hey :) x' and asking if you're home. What's that about? Oh, and I also secretly scrolled through your other recent texts with them. Who are Calvin and Riley? But don't worry, I trust you, babe!"

After those ten long minutes passed by, I remained silent. I've dragged myself into quite a mess. What the fuck was I thinking?

The turmoil of everything I've been through this summer— all the good and the bad, the late nights, the crying, the overthinking, the drinking, and everything in between all got mixed in with the high fructose syrup of the Slurpee and now my body has shut down. I ended up pressing my head against the cool window for a moment and liked that it felt like this freezes all my thoughts and puts everything on pause. So I just closed my eyes and pretended that's how the world works for a little while longer.

I didn't want to shut myself away from him. I didn't want to have to go to sleep with this inside of me. I didn't want to feel like either one of us was slipping away from the other while I was simultaneously contributing to it. It should have been so easy.

I don't know what to do. I don't know. Can't explanations ever be just as simple as that?

Why did you do that? Why didn't you say anything? Why are you being like this? — I don't know.

Harry would initiate conversations in between songs, point out certain things along the road, or sometimes ask a question. You might hate me for this too— I hate myself for this, but when he initiated conversations, I barely gave him a response. It was enough to satisfy whatever answer he was looking for but not enough to make me feel good about what I was doing.

The thing is, I couldn't stop doing any of it. I let myself get so far inside my head, so deep into the wounds Eli inflicted on me that they ripped open before they got fully healed, that I just shut down. My throat closed up because I didn't want to face the unbearable.

Boy, getting cheated on really does a number on you. Shoving it all down and pretending it never happened was not a healthy reaction so I don't recommend it.

I'm not thinking this is at all what's happening now. Again, I know nothing about the situation and have zero context behind those texts. I wasn't accusing Harry of anything. I trust him. Truly. I shouldn't have anything to worry about.

But I still got scared. I thought if I asked him about what I saw— if I told him my darkest thoughts, he'd get mad at me for not trusting him or for even making a big deal about this/keeping this from him for this long. I got scared that it would ruin things between us after being good for so long. I also got unreasonably angry for the parts of Harry's life, including people like Sage 26, I still don't know. My emotions were running high. I didn't want to escalate the situation. I just needed a moment to think. A moment to decompress.