See you again

Chapter 19

"How long have you been here? Why didn't you go to school?" I asked, ignoring his statement."Are you going to visit your grandmother?" There he goes again answering questions with questions. I lightly nodded, feeling a bit nauseous. His presence was almost suffocating. "Do you mind if I come along?" I guess it couldn't hurt, I thought. I shrugged my shoulders at him and walked off my porch.

We walked slowly as slow as I possibly could walk. I wasn't prepared for bad news. But nothing could have been that wrong. I hadn't received any phone calls from the hospital, which must have meant that my grandmother was doing okay. "Aaron?" I asked, staring at the ground as we walked."Hm?". "Why are you doing this?"He stopped in his tracks, forcing me to stop as well. The hand that was once in mine lifelessly fell away and I felt as if a ton of bricks were dropped on me. There was no way I could give her my heart. She wouldn't want that. She's lived her life and she wouldn't want me to give up my own to let her live a few more years. I just had to accept the fact that she would be gone.

"We'll leave her on life support for another week and we'll run a few more tests to see if there's anything else we can do," the doctor said before walking out the door. I glanced back at Aaron and all the blood had drained from his face.

His eyes were blank and his breathing was unsteady. It seemed as if he was more upset than I was. "Are you alright?" I asked. He immediately snapped out of his daze and returned to the normal stone faced Aaron. "Yes, of course. Are you alright?" I narrowed my eyes at him. All this heart talk must have disheartened him quite a bit. It did hit quite close to home for him. "I don't know," I said, finding my way to a chair before I fell to the floor. He sat beside me as I stared at my grandmother.

She looked so frail and weak. I knew her. She wouldn't want to be revived. She always said she never wanted anyone to take care of her when her health was bad. It was in her best interest that she left this world. It wasn't necessarily mine, but I couldn't be selfish. A single tear grazed down my cheek and Aaron's hand found its way back into mine. "We'll get through this together," he said, giving my hand a squeeze. He was so irritating. How could he be so aloof for the past few weeks and then be so caring and warmhearted? He was with Caitlyn, not me.

He didn't make any sense. But maybe that's why I like him so much. He never made any sense. His phone beeped, breaking the silence between us. He glanced at his phone before sighing. "I gotta get to school. Cait's looking for me," he said, releasing my hand from his. My heart dropped into my stomach as he stood up. "Will you be okay?"He asked. Was about to lie to him and tell him that I would be alright, but I was so tired of doing this to myself. I was tired of faking smiles and telling everyone that I was okay. I was tired ofpretending to be okay. I was a mess inside and Aaron was right. I was strong, but everyone had their breaking points and I was having one now. "No," I said, standing up, tears quickly welling up in my eyes. "I'm not okay, Aaron!." He looked at me, eyes full of sympathy. His walls were down again. This was my chance.

"I'm standing in the room of the only family member I have left and I have to accept the fact that I can't afford to just keep her on life support forever. Does it really seem like I'm okay?" I took a deel breath. "The man I fell in love with has been brushing me off his shoulder like I'm dirt. Do you know how it feels to feel like dirt, Aaron? Am I really nothing to you? Is that all I am? Are you just here because you pity me, Aaron? Because that's really not what I need right now." The blood running through my veins rose in temperature and relief came upon me after I had finally uncorked the bottle of feelings that were just waiting to be released.

"I don't pity you," he said sincerely. "And no, you're not-" He stopped mid sentence when his phone rang. I'm not what? He closed his eyes in chagrin as he answered the call. When his eyes reopened, his walls were right back up again.

"Yes, Cait, I'm on my way." He shoved his phone into his pocket "Listen, I have to go. I'm going to need you to be okay, alright?" he said, giving me a pat on the shoulder and walking out the door. My chest trembled copiously as uneven sobs came out. What did he think he was doing? He was going to tell me that I wasn't nothing to him, wasn't he?

The rain was pouring hard when I made it outside. I spotted neymar with his head down, walking awfully slow for someone walking in the pouring rain without an umbrella. I mustered up some fortitude, jogged up to him, and spun him around by the shoulder. It was raining hard enough that his hair and clothes were already on their way to becoming soaked in a matter of minutes. There was water under his eyes. It wasn't rain. It couldn't have been rain. Rain couldn't puddle in his eyes like that. He was crying.

"Aar-"

"No, don't speak," he said at an alarming volume, voice trembling. I froze in place. "Do you know how hard it is to pretend that you don't mean anything to me?! Do you? It's hard, okay? It's so hard. Why can't you be like all the other girls? They give up when they realize that I'm not looking for a relationship. But you," he said taking in a sharp breath.

"You just had to go and ruin everything. The only reason you could never get a read on me was because you knew nothing about me. Then you just had to go snoop around and find out things that I've never told a soul. Don't you think there are people out there that don't want to be read? Secrets are secrets for a reason." My breath was caught in my throat. His walls were collapsing, brick by brick, right before my very eyes.

"There's a reason I don't tell anyone anything. There's a reason I try not to get to close to people. Do you really need to know that reason? Do you really? Do you?!" He was flat out shouting at me as I stayed silent. "Okay, I'll tell you since you're socurious. Every girl I'm close to in my life dies. Yes, you heard me correctly. They die. I lost my mom, my sister. I lost the love of my life for God's sake. "This is why you can't be close to me. This is why I tried to keep our relationship from moving any farther than it did. But you being you had to go find me and I just had to be drunk and kiss you." My eyes widened.

He remembered that? "It was so selfish of me, but I didn't care because I was drunk." I swallowed the huge lump in my throat. "Aaron, I'm not going to die just because I'm close to you."