The Andrew Complex

TAC: 21

I don’t know how to reply to him; not sure how to reply to his tenderness, his verbal affection. Maybe it was because of the fact that Andrew was raised in a gang but he was unbelievably physically affectionate. I’d never heard his proclamations. Right there, listening to him trying to calm me down, trying to calm himself down in the process was incredibly calming.

“I’m sorry for all of this.” He says after five minutes of silence. “I’m sorry for ruining your life. You were going to have a future and now you’re…” He trails off, but the silence is failed with possible scenarios of how I was gonna end up because of his involvement in my life.

Dying, getting seriously injured, falling into a coma, getting shot...falling in love, becoming apart of the Wayne family, being his...dying.

I remember him saying that everything was a mistake and another sob finds its way out of my chest. I didn’t want him to think that this was a mistake. I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t want this to have happened. I wanted more than anything, in that moment to be able to stop crying and make a coherent sentence but I found that I was struggling to even take a breath that wasn’t ragged. I burrow my face into his chest and wrap my arms even tighter around him.

At this point, I’m not even sure what I’m crying about. I’m not even sure why I haven’t stopped - I’m not sure why I’m still sobbing but at the same time, I do. Everything changed. I had gone from a normal student to the kind that spends her days with her boyfriend, his best friend and their gang. I went from a girl without a care in the world to the kind of girl that had to look over her shoulder every two seconds. The kind that had a self-mandated curfew because god forbid I was out too late at night and got stabbed in the back.

After I broke up with Stephen, I wanted this to end. I wanted something else. I needed a change of a pace. I wanted it; I wished for it. But I didn’t think that my life would do a complete 180 like this. Any other person would’ve dropped everything. Any person with any bit of sanity and reason would’ve left Andrew by now. Would’ve begged their parents to move to Moscow or Russia. Somewhere far and not on this continent. What was wrong with me that made me want to stay with Andrew; what was wrong with me that made me want to stay with him forever?

I had been shot at, threatened. I had been kidnapped, I had probably grown fifty gray hairs from this. I had been strangled and people were coming from nowhere to try to kill me - and all because of a boy with the clearest blue eyes in the state.

What was it about Andrew that made him into an addiction?

Was it the way that his lip curled up on one side whenever he saw me? Was it the hugs, the kisses (even the drunken ones), the lazy way that he would sling an arm around my shoulder, the way that he walked; loping and with a predatory grace? The way that he looked when I was with someone other him? Or was it the way that he treated me so tenderly, like I could break. Part of me still believed that he was only with me because he felt bad for me. Because he felt bad that he had dragged me into his life and almost got me killed but part of me could only remember the way that his eyes lit with fire whenever he saw me, the way that they seemed like blue suns when I walked into a room and caught his eye.

The realization hits me like a ton of bricks.

Was I...Was I in love with him? I didn’t want to be. That much was obvious. The idea of loving someone that didn’t love me back - someone that might not even like me back was painful. I didn’t want to ruin anything we had but standing there, in his arms, his hand rubbing comforting circles into my back made me want to ruin everything and blurt everything that I was thinking.

Instead, I settle for deep breaths and eventually pulling away from Andrew and wiping the tears from my face. My throat is sore; partly because of the sobbing but mostly because of the strangling that I just went through. “I -” I clear my throat and square my shoulders. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” I hesitate. “And none of this was a mistake. I don’t regret any of this - of us. Our friendship...even the kisses.”