A Match into Texas (Mike Fuentes Fanfic)

19

Part 19

He was gone. That's alright, it's not like you needed him or anything.

Don't be an idiot, of course you needed him. You're pathetic, delusional, thinking that you could make make it on your own. You're destroying yourself, can't you see that you've built yourself up so well that you're imprisoned in your own mind?

I couldn't love Mike, I had nothing to love him with. I wasn't even a person anymore. I always tried to give everything I had to the ones who were worth it, but I had given too much this time. I didn't have anything else to give. Burned out, totally and completely, and how could I let the man I love marry the ashes of the person I once was?

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been driving alone in the state I was in. Mike had left the morning after the incident, flying out to who knows where, and I had left right after he did, driving back to Texas. It was a familiar feeling, running away from pain, being cowardly and convincing myself that it was alright to let wounds fester.

The windows were all down, and I put on Of Mice & Men, as I always did when I felt like crying. My phone buzzed on the seat next to me, Lyd's face blinking on the screen. I reached over and clicked the red button, cutting of the call before it had a chance to begin. I picked up the phone and threw it in the back, and cranked up the music as loud as it could go. Austin's voice blared out of the shitty speakers, giving words to the pain that I couldn't express.

This always seemed to happen when something bad happened. It wasn't a horrible situation, if I thought about it logically. It had been a doomed relationship from the start; he was too old, too good. I was too young, too insignificant to keep up with a rockstar. In my intellectual brain, it wasn't so bad, just another cloud passing by.

The emotional side of my brain disagreed. I had let someone in. He had wanted to stay. I couldn't do it, I had flaked out the way I always did. I always would, I would never let myself be happy, because I didn't deserve happiness. A typical case of being unable to love because you area consumed with self- hatred. And I had let myself care about him, without thinking about how it would turn out for him.

I could feel depression taking control. It's not just sadness and hopelessness. You start to shove all your feelings away, because you've grown to be afraid of them. You fight them down and lock them away in a toxic ball in the pit of your stomach, and there they lie, waiting for you to crack. You can only take so much, after all.

My brain started to shut down, and my body went on autopilot. My mind seemed to float, unattached to the empty husk that was my pathetic body. An out-of-body experience, my thoughts were racing faster than I could fathom and suddenly, silence. No thoughts, no fear, no pain, just a quiet, all-consuming sense of melancholy.

This had only happened twice before, in my long 20 years of living in this pitiful world. When I was 15, a friend died, one I had depended on, one I had loved more than anything on this earth. I got a call that he was gone, and my world stopped. My mind was a barren landscape, devoid of any emotion or coherent thought. I threw up my walls to protect my shattered essence from the prying, judgmental eyes of a society that had shunned from Day 1, and in doing so, I isolated myself from any comfort or help. I had done the same thing when my parents had kicked me out, three years later. I was gone, my body had run off memories and lack of food for weeks as I struggled to get my feet on solid ground. I made it, somehow.

But here I was again, locked, imprisoned beneath the tidal waves of hurt that crashed against the inside of my skull, unable to swim, unable to drown.

--------

Of course she had said no. She didn't love me as much as I loved her; it wasn't like she had pretended to.

I mean, c'mon, Mike. You're just the guy who would always fall short. You always have. Your parents always liked Vic better, your friends always ended up leaving. That why you liked her, remember? She didn't think you were a loser, she didn't think you were the least talented musician, she didn't think you were any of the things you had been trained to believe you were. She didn't care that you weren't the smartest, or the bravest, or the more handsome guy around. She liked you for you, truely and honestly. But, at the same time, she didn't feed your ego. She didn't have one, and it seemed like the concept of self- worth was foreign to her. She thought she was put here to make others happy, no matter the cost to herself.

Or, at least, until she decided she didn't want me anymore. I knew it was stupid, but I didn't want to lose her. Not then, not now, not ever.

No, no, that's not true. I don't want her here, she was unable to love me the way I loved her. I would have given years of my life just to be able wake up next to her every morning, and hold her hand whenever her fingers reached for mine. But she didn't want that. She didn't want me, she didn't need me. And I would prove to her, and to myself, that I didn't need her either.

I picked up my cell, and wrote out a message to Jaime. I owed him an explanation, at least.

'Hey bro, sorry I split but I need to get away for a while. I'm going back to SD, gonna visit Dad and imma hit up Gina when I get there. I'll text you when I land, I take off in 20'

He responded almost immediately. 'You sure about Gina? You know she's bad news, man. I'm stayin here for another week, Lyd said she'd like it if I did, and I like her a lot. Don't want to wreck it before it starts, you know?' I smiled in spite of myself.

I liked them together, Jaime and Lyd. She was confident and protective, he was loving and didn't expect a lot from anyone. She had a lot to give to him, and he would never take that or granted it worked. All Alexis ever did was give. She gave herself to the people she cared about and had nothing left for herself. Maybe she felt like she had nothing left to give to me. She was cracked, fragile. But not broken.

I wish she knew that I didn't want anything from her, just having her was more than I could wish for.