Things I'll Never Say

"Don't do this to me, Amy." He took his hands away, leaving me feeling colder than I thought possible. 

"I'm not doing anything to you, Seth. I'm just... I thought -" I looked up to meet the battle happening within his guarded eyes. "Just... nevermind. You're not who I thought you were." 

I let the bite in those words sink in, and saw the hurt flash in those beautiful eyes the moment the words were out of my mouth. It was a low blow, the lowest I could think of in the moment, but I needed to hurt him. I wanted him to feel what he was doing to me. How dare he act as though I'm the one hurting him? 

"I should probably go."

The defeat in his voice wrenched my heart a twinge further, and I considered asking him to stay. To stay for me. For us. But the words never made it past my lips. I couldn't make anything come out. Instead I just nodded, determined to keep the wetness forming in my eyes closely concealed until after he had left. 

Seth looked around my room again, a nostalgic look across his features, as though trying to take it all in for the last time. Then that gaze swung to me, and again, there was a resigned tint to the blue of his eyes as they met mine. "Bye, Amy." 

"Bye, Seth." 

As soon as the door shut after him, I threw myself onto my bed and cried until I could hardly breathe anymore. It felt like he had taken a part of me and walked away with it - and now all I could feel was the absence of the part that should be there - the part I wasn't meant to do without. 

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Three Months Earlier...

I could look at Seth forever. He had the sort of face that you just never got used to - it was impossibly perfect, and yet rugged. A strong jaw, the most adorable dimple in his left cheek when he smiled, the blue eyes that seemed to reach deep down into me every time he glanced at me. He'd never be mine though, not the way I wanted him to be. He'd never looked at me the same way - the way I look at him. As though I'd be happy to never have to look at anything else. He looks at me like his kid sister. Exactly as he's looked at me since we were ten years old and he rescued me from the garter snake in our garden. 

He was the boy next door. And I was the girl who could never quite outgrow that first impression in his eyes. 

"Would you hurry up already?" Seth's fingers tapped impatiently on the wheel of his '88 Buick Riviera, a huge boat of a car I had teased him incessently about when he first purchased it last year. 

"Hey. These things take time." I muttered as I tried to fit all of my books, my laptop bag, and the two cups of coffee I was holding all while trying not to track too much snow into his car from outside. His spirits lifted considerably as soon as he saw the second cup of coffee I was holding. 

"That for me?" 

"Yep." I tucked both cups in the cup holders between us, and fiddled with the heater of the car to try to turn it up. 

As Seth pulled out of my driveaway in the direction of school, he absentmindedly reached over and pointed the heating vents towards me, holding out a hand in front to make sure the air was firmly directed at me. "Better?" he asked, signaling to take a turn at a red light. 

"Much." I answered, watching him. I loved that about him, the way he could read me. The way he never even thought about taking care of me, he just did it. I never asked, he always knew. Most of the ride to school was silent as we both slowly drank our respective cups of coffee and silently went through our mental check lists for the day. 

Seth broke the silence first. "Are we still on for tonight?" 

Our weekly study night. Or rather, our weekly Seth-copies-my-notes-and-eats-all-my-chips night. "Sure. My house or yours?" 

Seth's gaze slid towards mine playfully. "Depends. What kind of snacks you got?" 

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