And So We Tried

Zero

x.

Her brown eyes bored into his light mixed blue-green ones, her harsh gaze weakening as she struggled to find some hint of light within the sea fret orbs she adored so much. The morning sun was beginning to rise to its peak, slight tips of an autumn-orange lighting the break of dawn to their left, over the branches of trees. It was nearing five a.m, and the two had been standing in front of the other for the past hour and a half.

Only a few words were spoken within the time they stood apart yet Acacia couldn't dare herself to tear her shoes from the cement beneath her. She knew it was a mistake coming to him in this hour, coming to him at all even, but the moment her buzzed mind was set on speaking to him, her car was parked on the side of his curb minutes later.

"I don't know why you can't just say something," she chiseled and narrowed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Her hands rubbed up and down the sides of her bare arms. The unclothed skin cooled the palms of her hands, the fire buried within her body failing to extinguish the hatred radiating through.

A bitter laugh spat through Holden's teeth as he inhaled the scent of mixed drinks and fresh mint gum. If it wasn't for the smell of Acacia's breath, her tear stained reddened glossed eyes could have easily gave her away. Not only would her drunken appearance hinted towards her presence, but the two had been in the same position, many times before.

"You shouldn't have driven here drunk," he scolded, pulling his beanie down over his dark brown curls to just above the studs in his ears. Cacia rolled her eyes and plopped herself down on the chilled curb, extending her feet out before her. The two wouldn't be getting anywhere tonight, as they didn't every other intoxicated weekend. They both traveled in circles and Acacia knew just how to test Holdens' patience and irritate him to the bone.

Acacia was drunk out of her wits, drinking the bar dry just hours before; Holden barley coming down from his faded high and light buzz. Midnight had struck when his phone rang as he was driving home from work; and even though he didn't want to answer her third call of the night, the feeling within the back of his mind and pit of his chest made his thumb slide over the answer button.

He had shown up to the bar within thirty minutes of her asking him to come. As soon as he walked in, he noticed her drunken state: her body being held up by her friend as she rested her chin atop of her opened hands, the two sat at the bar table in the middle of the room with empty shot glasses and beer bottles. Cacia shined the definition of a hot mess, her long curls tangled at the ends while the top buttons of her bodysuit were undone, exposing the straps of her black lace bra, and her light denim shorts ripped at the bottom seams that were now ridden towards the top of her thighs.

Holden knew he should have walked over to her to make sure she was okay but rather than tending to his heavily intoxicated ex-girlfriend, his feet stalked the opposite direction towards the open bar and girl in a slick burgundy laced tank and high jeans. With a whisper in her ear, Acacia knew he had showed and it only took a few minutes for her drunken eyes to capture the sepia colored boy she adored with her being upon the wooden dancefloor with a beer in his hand and blonde against his chest.

The minutes in between were a blur since.

Cacia's eyes were full of tears upon seeing Holden holding a girl to his body and the next she was banging on his chest as Holden was then to her aide, carrying her out of the bar to her friends' car. Once Holden had placed her in the backseat of Acacia's best friend, Mallory's car, the tears were freely springing from her eyes.

Her once perfectly winged eye liner was now a smeared arrow and her fluttery fake eyelashes were now swept on the wet cement. If asked, Acacia probably couldn't have comprehended why she was crying over Holden, but in that moment it was as if she was Kim Kardashian crying over her lost diamond earring in the ocean.