Love Me Back

Chapter 19

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Cara entered the aquarium as she adjusted her backpack on her shoulders. She sat down next to the big tank of fish of all shapes and sizes, her hair falling in front of her face.

The view of fish happily swimming to and fro was slightly comforting.

Hours passed.

Someone sat down next to her as the flow of people entering and exiting the museum decreased.

"Hey, you lost?" Cara turned. Beside her sat a lanky boy of about her age, his dirty brown hair in his deep hazel eyes.

"Um, no. I'm fine." Cara stared blankly at the empty room before them.

"Are you okay, then? You seem...out of it."

"I'm fine," she said, annoyed that her feelings were so transparent.

"Of course," he shot back. "I'm sure you're quite dandy."

Cara sighed.

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" The boy smiled a crooked smile, as if only half of his mouth was capable of lifting.

Cara rolled her eyes. "What are you, a psychiatrist?"

"No, but I just saw you looking so lost, and I know what that feels like."

Cara stayed silent for a few minutes, hoping the boy would just leave her alone.

He didn't.

Finally, Cara took a deep breath. "There was this guy..."

"Ooh, a guy. Wow."

"Shut up. Anyways...His name was Finn, and...and I broke his heart."
The boy listened patiently.

"I fell in love with someone else--a guy named Jack. But he was a cheating bastard, and I left him, and I ran away because I'm tired of the same town and the same, lying people. And now I'm here."

"Why can't you just tell Finn you want him back? Do you love him?"

Cara looked down at her sneakers. "I don't know if I love him or not. I just... I just want to be loved." She had found that it was easier to confide in strangers, for she would never have to see them again.

"No one can love you unless you want them to," the boy said.

"I want to be loved," Cara said. "I want to be able to laugh and cry and live like I want to, and I want someone there that wants to do that with me."

"This Finn guy seemed like he loved you a lot," said the boy. "You should have gone back to him instead of ending up here."

"I'm so scared though," cried Cara. "I'm so scared that I'll end up like everyone else, a fucking zombie that staggers through life thinking that someone, anyone, loves them. I'm so scared of having my heart broken and having to pick up the pieces all by myself. I'm scared that no one will ever love me, that no one has ever loved me in the first place. I'm scared that no one would care if I disappeared. I don't know where he is now, either. I have no way of communicating with him..."

The boy quietly nodded, as if he knew. As if he knew what it felt like to feel completely worthless.

As if. As if he could possibly be able to relate, the boy with the sandy hair and the hazel eyes, to having to feel the pain of seeing the person he had loved the most be with someone else. To see them not give a shit about them. To see them ignore him, as if there had been nothing between them but space.

"I know you might think that I wouldn't be able to understand," he muttered, interrupting Cara's thoughts. "But that happened to me too. The girl I had loved the most out of anyone in the world, the girl that I was best friends with, one day...she told me that we couldn't be together. I never understood why. We passed each other in the halls at school like we had no history together. Like the feelings that had passed between us were only acts of kindness. It was like the world split in two, and we had ended up on opposite sides."

Cara leaned her head against the glass of the aquarium and looked up at the fish swimming. "What's your name?"

The boy glanced at her. "I'm Ace. You?"

"Cara".

"Oh."

They sat like that, against the glass wall, for the rest of the night.

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It was like he was screaming and no one was noticing. He wished he could forget her like she forgot him, forget and forget and forget, until there was nothing he could remember about the hell he lived in. Until he could live no more, until there was something worth loving for.

Loving someone, he had decided, was not worth the pain.

Finn got off of the bus near a snug-looking cafe, and gathering his belongings, started towards the coffee shop. As he walked in, the bell on the door dinged, and the barista looked up.

"Hey, welcome. What can I get you?"

Finn ordered hot chocolate.

As he sat down, a steaming cup of cocoa in his hand, snippets from the tables around Finn found their way to him.

"How was your day?"

"This new book I've been reading, it's amazing..."

"I swear, she was the cutest girl ever..."

"What role do you want to get this year? Clara?"

"So this girl, Cara..."

Finn stopped, his mug lifted halfway to his mouth. It couldn't be.

"Yeah, she said she might've still loved him...yeah...crazy, right? These love stories...uh huh..."

Finn could barely catch his breath. It couldn't possibly be...

"Honestly, someone should keep that Jack guy in check...I know, right? Such a jerk!"

Finn got up from his table and moved closer to the unknown speaker.

"Seriously, I hope she's ok..."

Finn could see now. It was a teenage boy with sandy brown hair and sparkling hazel eyes.

He was talking on his phone, casually slumped against the side of his booth. Finn sat down at a booth just in front of the speaker.

"What does he look like? Welll, he has blue eyes, brown hair, and freckles, from what she told me..."

Finn stopped moving.

"Yeah, he, um, also plays soccer, too..." The boy peeked around his shoulder and caught Finn's eye.