One Summer Day (BWWM)

CHAPTER 35

"Hi."

Is all he said and all I could do was stand there frozen. I couldn't believe that he was here. I just stood there staring at him, not saying anything.

I open the door and allow him to walk in, no words were exchanged between us and that went on for about 15 minutes before he broke it.

I hear him inhale. "I know that this is long overdue but it's better I do this now before I lose you ...forever." He pauses. "I'm so so sorry Cléo. I have no excuse for how I treated you that day. You did everything right and I decided to be childish and selfish. I was only thinking about myself in the moment and didn't try to hear things from your perspective. I didn't come to see you earlier because I wanted to give you space, but as selfish as it may sound I can't stay away from you for too long. This week has felt like a year being away from you."

"I know this is very selfish of you to ask but can you please forgive me? We don't have to go back to what it was before." He says hesitantly. "I just can't imagine my life without you in it. I need you in my life Cléo."

I gasp softly. His confessing felt so raw. I felt my eyes dampen a little. I try to hold back my tears. "Why did you act like that, the day I came over ? What did I do for you to act like I meant nothing to you?"  I ask the question that had been nagging me the past week.

He rakes his hand through his hair. "You weren't at fault at all. It was just how I processed everything."

"You're not answering my question." I feel myself getting mad all over again.

He sighs. "I was jealous."

Silence. I stare at him in silence and shock.

"This all happened because you were jealous and you couldn't explain that to me." I say trying not to yell at him.

He gets up moving closer to me and grabs my hand. "If you give me the chance to now I'll explain everything to you." He says and I look down at our conjoined hands. I missed his touches.

"Go on."

He exhales deeply before he starts. "In high school I really liked this girl her name was Alexa. I had liked her since my freshman year. There wasn't anything special about her really, all I knew was that I liked her. I think I made it pretty obvious that I liked her but she never bat her eye in my direction. That was until my junior year when puberty hit me. I grew taller, my acne cleared up, and I had recently started going to the gym."

"I started to get a lot of attention, but it didn't really matter until I got her attention. We started dating and at first it was enjoyable until she started being overtly sexual. I would brush her off, but then it became too much."

"I had come back from practice one day to find Alexa all over Tako. At first I couldn't process what was going on. My best friend and my girlfriend ? The two people I trusted in the world betraying me, I couldn't believe it. I was so mad I didn't talk to both of them. Tako came over and explained everything to me. How Alexa was always giving him suggestive looks whenever I didn't pay attention. Or how she was overly touchy with him when I wasn't around. When I confronted her about it, she denied it claiming that Tako was lying and just wanted to break us up, but I knew Tako, and he would never do that."

"When she knew that antics didn't work on me anymore she finally admitted that she never really wanted to be with me. She was with me because she wanted to get with Tako and she said and I quote, "The sex was good." Initially I was mad but then that anger turned to insecurity. I started spiraling thinking that there was something wrong with me and that Tako was the better than me and I found myself constantly comparing myself to him. It even caused a drift in our friendship but we got over that."