Smoke Break /Georgenotfound/

՜՞՜47՜՞՜

"You could've just told me." George's voice was dull, dry, lacking any hint of emotion.

"Me?" Even though I successfully held back the tears, the lump in my throat kept growing and choking me, making it apparent that I was struggling through my voice, "I should've told you?"

"Yes, you. You're the one who chose to pretend you didn't know me."

I was in disbelief from his words. He couldn't be blaming me for all of this. Even as a defense mechanism, it sounded stupid.

"Pretend I didn't know you? You think I knew you from the start and pretended I didn't?" My own words sounded unbelievable to me. If he knew me at all, even just one bit, he'd know I'm a terrible liar and would have made a fool out of myself if I pretended from the beginning, "I didn't know anything about you; only what you had told me, which was nothing. But when you're famous and you give someone your full name, you can't act surprised when they find you on the internet."

For some reason I expected him to say that he didn't believe me. That I had been a weird fan from the very beginning, and all of this was just an evil masterplan I came up with.

I don't know why I was so sure that he'd accuse me of lying, but when he didn't, the wrinkle between my eyebrows softened. I took a relieved, yet shaky breath in and spoke.

"But none of that matters now, does it? Go pack your stuff, you're gonna be late for your flight."

"Aria, I..." he paused mid-sentence, sighing heavily, "I really didn't want it to be this way."

"And what did you do to stop it?" I looked up at him, my eyes glossy, tears threatening to spill. "Did you do anything, George? You could've prevented this from the start! From the very start, George! All it would have taken was a little bit of honesty."

"Aria-"

"Not only were you not honest from the start, but you also kept making it worse. Lies after lies and-"

"I never lied to y-"

"Hiding things is just as bad!" My voice was getting strained, the salty tears running down my throat amplifying the lump in my throat.

"Calm down," George put his hands on both sides of my arms, slowly running them up and down, testing if I would protest before he attempted to pull me into his chest. I pushed him away, finally able to voice all those thoughts I had kept inside, all those thoughts that had kept me up crying at night.

"Maybe I could calm down if it was just that one thing you couldn't tell me for some reason. But not telling me you don’t actually live here? Not telling me you're gonna leave in a couple of months? Do you even understand how insane that is?"

"I didn't think it was relevant at that time. When I realized it was, it was too late."

"When did you realize? Ten minutes ago? Just now? Any other time would have been more acceptable than whatever this is!" My throat was starting to hurt from how loud I was being. It was out of character too, which I could see was concerning him.

"Aria, for god's sake, calm down." He tried to pull me closer again, but I pushed him away to wipe my tears, his touch feeling like another pang in my heart.

"I can't fucking calm down, George! If it were you learning some diabolical piece of information in a span of ten minutes, maybe you'd lose your shit as well! But no, you knew, you knew everything from the very start and you were fucking prepared for it!"

"I didn't know, okay?! I didn't know it would go this far! I wasn't here to get romantically involved with someone!"

I gritted my teeth, frustration growing with every word leaving his mouth. The tactical choice of the words made me hate him even more.