I couldn't decide if I was depressed or so happy that it was making me sad, because things weren't fixed, but they were better.
Gerard was careful around me, again.
He had stopped kissing me on the cheek- he almost seemed scared to. He didn't seem to want to take any risks.
When I slept over, even if he did decide to join me on the floor in the middle of the night, he wouldn't come within three feet of me. When we ate dinner with his family, he wouldn't hold my hand beneath the table like he used to. He had promptly stopped putting his arm around me when we walked. He'd started bad habits of asking me if I was okay and of asking if he could hold my hand before he did.
I was starting to miss his body heat. I was starting to miss the way his fingers fit between mine, how he squeezed my hand when he laughed. I was staring to miss the way we fell in sync when we walked. I was starting to miss the spontaneous kisses on the cheek and the sudden hugs and I was starting to miss the time when all I had to do was brush my fingers against his and he would know that I wanted to hold his hand.
A lot of that had ended.
Most of it had, actually.
He suddenly seemed to not know what to do with himself- he was so scared of doing something wrong that he didn't want to do anything at all.
He was acting like I had, when we first started the whole "togetherness" thing.
I almost wanted to kiss him, just to show him that it was okay, but I didn't because I knew that'd just make things worse.
I couldn't keep his words out of my head, though.
Had he meant them?
"No, I don't want you to be like the Swedish boy," he had said. At first my heart had sunk- that boy had done so much for Gerard. He'd helped him realize something about himself that changed his life for the better, forever. I wanted to be that important to him, too. But then Gerard said, "I want you to be like you," and something just felt right about that. "I want you to be like you, because you're all that I want."
And then we went quiet, and I couldn't stop smiling, and neither could he. That had been a good day, for both of us.
But since then... Things have just been weird.
I was starting to wonder if he had been honest.
Did he really want me, like he did before the kiss? Or had I ruined everything with one stupid mistake? He'd suddenly gotten so moody, lately- one minute all he wanted to do was sit there and enjoy each other's company, and the next he'd be begging me to go to the park or the diner, or to take a walk or something like that. Sometimes he'd be so quiet and sad looking that it was making me depressed, too, and the next he was going off on a loud, annoyed rant about something, or he was so happy that I couldn't help but smile, too.
Knowing myself, I was probably the reason for that. His emotions were impossible to predict and it was all because he didn't know how to act around me- I could almost feel it, the nervous tension around him.
I'd wrecked this relationship. I'd completely shattered the one thing in life that I really enjoy.
I felt my lips pull back into a small, sad smile of self-pity.
I'm such an idiot, sometimes, that even I make fun of myself.
"What are you so happy about?" Gerard asked from the other side of the table, misunderstanding my smile and then smiling a bit himself. We were at the diner- Gerard with his cup of coffee, as always, and I with just a glass of water. Neither of us were really hungry enough to eat.
