𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 ✹ 𝐠. 𝐠𝐢𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢 - 𝐛𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥

Haven

How do you tell one of the people you love the most in the world that you're sneaking behind their back with someone you know you shouldn't?

It's not just the lying and sneaking around that hit me. It feels like a punch to the gut every single time I'm with Johnny and Gerard is around. Everytime the three of us are in a room together and Gerard cracks a joke and inevitably I laugh at it, it feels like the wind gets knocked out of me. He stands there next to my brother like he always does and it feels like a constant reminder of what I can't have. I can stare all I want but never touch. I feel like I'm betraying Johnny and I can't shake the guilt that plagues me every single time.

It feels terrible lying to him it really really does but if i stop lying then that means i'll lose them both. My brother won't speak to me again for a long time, and when he does and we argue, he'll always pull the 'well you got with my best friend' card. Every single time he pulls that, and I just know he will, it will leave me with a bitter taste on my tongue tinged with the inevitable underlying sense of betrayal. He will scrutinize every single thing I do and I doubt he'll trust me the same way again.

And Gerard? I'll lose him too. When it comes down to it, I know he'll choose Johnny. He always has. Gerard and Johnny-best friends since almost forever. They're tied together by memories and loyalty that I'll never understand or be able to compete with. When the dust settles, Gerard will look at me, regret in his eyes, and I'll know he's making a choice he doesn't want to make.

I can't do that to him. I can't break them apart.

The whole interaction with Feely freaked the both of us out too much for comfort and there was a tiny rupture in whatever it was that we built. The foundations of our "relationship" if you can even call it that were already flimsy, so guess what happened to them when one of Gerard's closest friends starts suspecting we're linking behind everyone's backs. We took distance from each other so that meant no more conversing on school halls, no more sitting next to each other whenever my lunch coincided with his, no more stolen glances or hand brushes, no more him whispering secret jokes in my ears.

Essentially, they took away the things I needed to be reminded that I was someone to him, that I was a person he cared about and not just his girl for the week.

Call me selfish if you want but I wanted him for myself. I wanted him to be mine always, not only on those secret moments we had when nobody was around that made me crave that he acted that way in front of the whole world. Every time I see him laughing with someone else, or when he talks to another girl at school, I feel like my heart is slowly being pulled out of my chest. I didn't know I could feel this way, so addicted to someone, so desperate for them to be mine-even though I know I can't have them.

This wasn't living. I felt like I was just surviving, one inch above the water at all times. But what was I about to do?

When Johnny insisted I go to Biddies with them I was skeptical at first. For those of you who aren't familiar, Biddies was a small bar which was frequented by the majority of my school. It was my brother and his friend's spot. I'd never gone, mostly because of my age, but they had won the first game of the season and Johnny was feeling extra...loose today.

Shannon was tightly tucked under his arm, looking like a literal child next to my giant brother. Claire Biggs spoke loudly with Shannon and Lizzie as they walked near my brother and his girlfriend. Hughie walked hand in hand with his longtime girlfriend Katie Wilmont. She was quiet and meek but she was nice. I'd never shared more than five sentences with her but the brief interactions gave me lovely impressions of her. Feely trailed behind us at his own pace. Gerard I wasn't sure where he was but I didn't give myself the pleasure of caring because as of late he didn't care where I was when we were together. He made that very clear when for the past weeks he'd been almost always avoiding me at school and only making contact when we were at the safety of either of our homes, through text messages or late night phone calls.