Built to Fall Apart

10

"You what now?" Carly screamed out to me.

"I just drove him home. He was drunk." I said trying to make it sound casual, nevertheless Carly picked up on the words.

"Let me get this straight.You drove your ex home and put him in his room and wrote-"

"Sorry Carly looks like I'm getting another call. I'll call you back! " I said quickly as Aiden's number flashed on my screen.

"You better we are no way done discussing this."

"Love you too bye!" I said quickly. Although I didn't really want to talk to Aiden I still wanted to move forward with this, we were playing the leads in an age old romantic play!

After a second of discussing it with myself, I decided to answer him.

"Hello?"

"Thanks."

"You got the note? "

"Yeah, thanks again. I know this is weird but would you mind coming with me to get coffee or something. Just to um... talk about last night."

"Um okay. Starbucks by Wendy's okay?"

"Yeah meet you there in 15."

~*~

I didn't think too much about what was to come as I walked into Starbucks, ordered my drink and waited. It was no surprise he turned out to be 30 minutes late.

That boy has been late to everything since the day I met him.

He waved at me as he made his way over to the barista and ordered a drink. Then he walked over to me awkward smile and all.

I smiled back and turned on my phone to check the time.

"I swear you are going to be late to your own funeral." I said laughing he laughed back clearly tense. He wanted to say something but he didn't know how to phrase it maybe? He quickly sat down across from me pulling out his phone and typing something and then turing it off.

AIDENS POV

I wanted to say something. But how do you thank a girl for saving your life and other people's and keeping you from making a mistake you promised yourself you would never make?

And then how do explain why it's so important to you. I can't just say, How's the weather, oh by the way thank you for saving my life and not killing me or anyone else like that idiot drunk driver who killed my parents when they were on the way to surprise me for my birthday and I didn't know for days what had happened because I wasn't expecting them at all. And I went into a crazy state of depression and I still don't think I'm out of it no matter how hard I try to convince myself it wasn't my fault. This situation was avoidable. And that's what sucks the most.My situation was avoidable, and you avoided it.

I couldn't just say that right? I had to ease into that, but how?

"Um thank you for last night. I really appreciate it." I finally settled on saying that I looked down at my hands fidgeting with them.

"No problem.I was so scared you would be mad at me for taking you to your house." She said calmly. She was looking over at me trying her best to get my attention but I didn't want to look up at her and instead I focused on the many lines on my hands.

I really wish I could palm read, right now the lines ment nothing to me, I think one is my lifeline or is that, crap I'm getting side tracked.

That happens a lot when I don't want to say something.

"Not at all, thank you so much. I didn't deserve that from you. You saved my life and probably many others from stopping me from driving drunk."

She blushed at that clearly she hadn't completely thought through that. She didn't say anything so I continued.

"You know it wasn't always peachy keen when I was growing up. My parents traveled a lot, I mean that's how they made money it's not really like they had a choice. I was home alone a lot, but I knew they loved me. It just wasn't always easy for them, they built their own name from scratch. They were doing something they loved. " She nodded unsure of why I had brought that up.

"On my sixteenth birthday my parents wanted to surprise me by flying in. They didn't tell me anything so I didn't know that they were planning on coming. They had business pretty far away. " She winced at this guessing on where the story was going but in a 'I don't want it to be what I think it is' way. By furrying her eyebrows a small frown playing on her face.

"Anyways on their way back from the airport they got into a crash. It was close to midnight the day before my birthday. The next day when I woke up I saw that I had gotten a voice mail from both of them saying that they had landed while I was asleep. I was so excited until the next voice mail played of a man trying to break the news to me only an hour later. There wasn't a lot he said other than they were hit by a 19 year old drunk driver and that he was sorry that my parents didn't make it. He left the information about the drunk driver and let me know that I could go to my lawyers to collect my share of the will. That was all." She reached her hand over the table to hold my hand but I declined.

"I spent the rest of my birthday trying to sort out things and crying and getting mad until that spiraled into depression. I just, I can't describe to you how happy I am that you helped me not make that mistake and I'm just sorry. I'm sorry for being the jerk I was to you."

She was quiet, watching me for a while kind of confused as to why I was saying this but at the same time being as sympathetic as she could be. I wasn't crying, I had told the story many times, it was just I was telling it to her this time after something I almost did.

"I'm sorry I just don't know what to say." She said carefully as if at any moment I was going to burst into tears.

"I just wanted to tell you. I feel like we didn't get to know each other enough when we were "dating", and I feel like we should. I mean we are playing the leads in one of the most romantic shows of all time."

"Yeah I agree." She said with a small smile. She got up shortly to go and pick up her drink and mine.

"So where do you want to start?" I asked.

"Let's start with an apology?"

"Or we could just forget our past?"

"Okay let's go with that." I smiled at that and we went on to talk about many things. Mostly school related but we got a little side tracked. It was like the day we first kissed. Only we didn't try to rush into a relationship. We both wanted to get to know each other before going any further. But I have to say the sparks were still there even after all this time.

~*~

Woah that was a lot to unload...what did you think?

Does Aiden's past surprise you at all?

Get excited Haley's past is really interesting too but I don't want to unload all of that yet;).