"collecting your jar of hearts
and tearing love apart."
Funny thing was that I was never actually scared to be completely alone with Lucas, I was absolutely positively terrified. We hadn't been alone since before our breakup, and it was when we were just friends. My father never trusted me with him after we announced our childhood relationship, what we thought was a relationship anyways.
I expected him to come through my window like he always did. When he came through my front door I was actually disappointed. Even though I told him to come through the door there was a big part of me that hoped that he would use the window. He smiled at me as he put his bag down. I was sitting at the bay window when he joined me.
"Hey, sugar." He tested. He had never called me that name when we were dating or when we were friends so it was something new for me. Personally I liked 'sunshine' and 'princess' better but we were no longer dating s he couldn't call me that.
"I'm anything but sugar." I commented as he almost dropped to the floor. It was hard to keep the whole tough act with him laughing like I was the funniest punch line in the world but somehow I managed.
"So you don't like the name?" Lucas got up from the ground and sat next to me. He placed his hand in mines as I pulled back immediately. I bit my bottom lip as I tried to figure out what I just did. "I guess you didn't." He whispered. He scooted a few painful feet away from me.
"Don't scoot away." I whispered. I seemed to surprise him and myself from what I said. He was taken aback as he moved closer to me, closer than before. "It's just hard." I added.
"I never meant to cause you any pain." He said. I believed him. He was never a pain type of guy. He hated doing anything that would hurt other people which was the truthful part about his statement.
"I know." I responded. I didn't know what else to say. I was tempted to make a move and grab his hand but I couldn't do that. Not anymore.
"I know I caused you pain. That's why I stayed away." This truth thing was overrated. I hated and loved hearing everything that he was saying. I hated the fact that I knew it was all true and that he was trying to put my feelings over his. It pained me to know that somehow I would always think about that boy.
"You staying away only hurt me more." I admitted. It was true, it hurt that he never came after me. Although I never considered why he never came after me I always thought that he would have a good reason. I guess that reason was my feelings.
"But you walked away." He reasoned. It was a good reason. I walked away so he gave up.
"And you never chased after me." I finished. I was being absolutely stubborn and he knew it. I would never let him win. Even when we were friends I loved being the one to prove him wrong. Competition was something that was engraved in our friendship, it was something that I loved about us."
We sat in dead silence for the next couple of minutes. I refused the urge to be the fist to talk. It was another act of pure stubbornness. He laced his fingers in mines. It was just a friendship handhold, right? Friends do that.
"Why do we keep doing this?" I finally blurted out. He was confused so I went more into depth about what I was talking about.
"Why do we keep going around this loop of not friends and then friends and then we get into a relationship. We're in the relationship for a while before something happens and its over. And then look at us now. Were doing this weird finger hold thing and I don't know what that means. I don't know what we are. Are we even friends? Can we even be friends?" \
"We can be whatever you want to be, Riley. Our relationship isn't just limited to being romantic. We can be friends, many people are friends-" He said before I cut him off.
"But we aren't 'many people.' We aren't your typical type of friends. We were something and that something died. I cant ignore it and I refuse to."
"What are you afraid of?" He asked.
I tried avoiding this question. Both of my best friends asked me the same thing after our breakup. It was painful to talk about. Anything Lucas related was hard to think about.
"Tell me." He whined. He scooted closer to me and interlaced all of our fingers. I was still trying to convince myself that this was just a friendship type of thing. I didn't need any more complications clouding my already too complicated life.
"I am afraid of loosing you." I must have looked pathetic. I could feel the tears run down my face but I didn't care. The something that I really cared about was sitting right next to me. His hand was shaking but it didn't matter to me. I couldn't decipher if it was out of anger or out of him being terrified of me but I just couldn't bring myself to actually care.
"You could never lose me." His voice sounded broken. It was like a broken record on repeat. He would always apologize for hurting me in any way.
"What if I already have?" I painfully stated. He started tracing circles with his thumb on my hand. It was something that he would do to calm me down. I had to admit that it was actually working. It would calm me down because his touch, his feeling would take all the pain away. Except this time he was the pain, and I couldn't get rid of that.
"Well, if I have learned anything about us, it is that somehow we always end up finding each other. If for some reason we drift apart we always end up finding each other. I don't think that we will ever loose that." He was now trying to comfort me. You know how I was talking about being a ticking time bomb earlier? Yeah, well the bombs timer just reached zero.
"This isn't a fairytale, Lucas. We cant just assume that we will always be friends. We are not the same people we were a couple of ears ago when we promised to be friends forever. Times are changing. We grew up and I cant be a child anymore." I was trying my hardest to not break. On the inside all of my body's systems were shutting down. It pained me to say these things but I wasn't going to be pushed around and told what to say.
"What are you scared of?" Lucas yelled scaring me. He got up and flared his arms up putting a good distance between the both of us.
"You want to know what I am so deeply afraid of? You want o know everything?" I had no idea where this sudden burst of confidence was coming from. It was like I was a totally different person standing up for myself.
He nodded as I worked up the last bit of courage that I needed to just pour everything out.
"I am afraid of getting hurt. I know that I walked away the last time but I couldn't handle he pain. I couldn't handle being your friend and having to talk to you, feeling the need to be your friend so I left. I don't want to be in pain anymore, Lucas. You out of all people understand that."
"One day we were fine and then the next day we were done. What did I do wrong? I know you gave me your reason but it isn't enough. What did I do to push you away? I cant get hurt anymore. I am sick and tired of letting myself get dumped and left by the person that means the most to me. You mean the most to me. I loved you and you left. Maya's right, people leave and hearts get broken.
I sound like a broken record, I know that. But maybe I sound like a broken record because I am broken, Lucas. Maybe we should have just stayed friends and buried our feelings. I don't know but I cant put myself in a situation where I know I will end up in tears."
And with that he left.
