speak now | jack hughes DISCONTINUED

chapter sixteen

Disclaimer: Sexual Content

and i'll be yours for the weekend, 'tis the damn season — taylor swift

Bailey Cameron

"Hey, Bailey."

My mind went blank but a thousand emotions rushed through me all at once. No. It couldn't be him. It was him. Why was he here?

Miles Anderson, the boy who broke my heart not even a year ago, was standing right in front of me.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, wanting to yell at him and cry and and shove him and tell him to leave me alone all at once. My brain was working overtime, and I blinked a few times to regain my train of thought. Why was he here? He said so himself that he wasn't in love with me and had another girl already. So why would he be here?

Maybe I was just having a nightmare. And in a few seconds my dad or Jack or Marta or someone would wake me up and I'd be sitting by the warm fire and I'd be able to forget this even happened.

"Look, I know you probably don't want me here—" Miles started, and I shook my head.

"No, I don't. You broke my heart, completely shattered it, and you just show up out of the blue a year later? You don't get to do that," I tried to hide any emotion other than anger. But my voice betrayed me. It was shaky and uneven and I think even if I yelled it would sound the exact same.

"I can't live without you, Bailey."

And there went my train of thought. Again. What?

Miles continued, "A few months after we broke up, I realized I love you. I really do. I broke up with the other girl as soon as I realized. And—And I saw you running this morning, and all those feelings just hit me like a train. Bailey, please listen to me when I say this: I want you back. Please. I'm in love with you. I always have been."

From the moment Miles broke my heart, broke me, I had forced myself that I wouldn't put myself through that again. If they were all just going to leave, why even start, right? But Miles.. He came back. Supposedly. Maybe love wasn't completely fucked yet. Maybe I still had a chance at it.

"Oh, I brought you this," He pulled a single flower out of his back pocket. A Marigold. My favorite. He hadn't forgotten. Maybe he did still care.

"Why are you here?" I finally asked. "I mean, it's been a year and you had all that time to come back. Why now?"

He ran an anxious hand through his hair. "I—I don't know, Bailey. I have no idea why I waited so long. I wish I had said something sooner. But I'm here now, aren't I?"

I stared at the flower in his outstretched hand. Maybe going back wouldn't be so bad. He said he regretted waiting and he said he was still in love with me. The other girl was gone, he claimed he loved me, and was offering me a way back in. But was he even telling the truth? He had said he loved me thousands of times during our relationship, and then one day he admitted he hadn't loved me at all. He admitted he had lied about it. I wanted to believe him now, I really did, I just didn't know if I could.

But why would he be standing in front of me if he didn't mean a word he said, though? He had gotten me out of his life, and now he wanted me back in it. That had to say something, right?

No, that doesn't mean anything. This is a bad idea.

But it did mean something. To me, at least. A lot, actually. The possibility that his love for me was real and as strong as mine had been for him. We could start over. I could start over. It could last. We could make it work.