You opened your front door not expecting what you saw or who you saw. Alex Gaskarth, your ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend. You had grown up two houses down from Gaskarth and spent nearly every other day with him and the rest of the guys. You and Alex had started dating senior year; in the fall after graduation he broke up with you. He left afterwards and you hadn’t heard from him since, till now that is. Jack still called you weekly along with Zack and Rian. You only wished that one of them had given you a heads up.
You sighed heavily moving aside so Alex could walk in. If you were being honest with yourself you still loved Alex, you had never been able to move on. Alex looked like he had a lot on his mind and you understood because him being here was causing your brain to go into over drive. He took a few steps toward you taking in your hazel eyes, brown hair and tall figure. In return you took in his brown eyes, brown hair with blond highlights and tall figure.
He grabbed your hands holding them gently in his looking deeply into your eyes. “I remember that summer before I went away,” he started gently; so many emotions floating in his eyes you could not decipher them all. “You were the envy of everyone we knew and our love was the envy of all of our friends.” He seemed to be in a different place, at a different time; like he was back there, in the summer. “But I always kept you safely in my arms, we were invincible.” You almost laughed; invincible you thought bitterly, obviously.
“Then what happened, Alex,” you asked, trying to keep the venom from your words. “Wasn’t I good enough?” The venom slipped and you could see it in his eyes; your words had hurt him. Regret washed over you; never did you ever want to be the cause of his pain. However, he had often been the cause of your pain. He had told you to leave, screamed at you to get out of his house, which wasn’t his house but his mothers, and then he had left. He went on tour and forgot all about you or so you had thought.
Now he stood in your living room holding your hands with that look of guilt and remorse on his face. “No,” he almost cried out. “You were everything I wanted in my life, you were everything I needed,” he told desperately. “Then why,” you shouted getting angry and frustrated, grabbing your hands away from his. He ran his hands through his hair in aggravation, pulling at it. “We were just kids and I was,” he hesitated. “I was afraid.” His explanation confused you. “Afraid of what,” you asked, almost disbelieving. He shook his head again pulling his hair.
He was pacing and for a moment you thought he wasn’t going to answer. “We were young and I was afraid it wouldn’t last,” he almost shouted, as if he knew now that that was naïve. You wanted to laugh at his childishness, at his stupidity. “I was afraid you would grow-up and realize you could do so much better, that you deserved so much better,” he told you. And to you he sounded kind of pathetic. “Do better then you,” you asked him but it was a rhetorical question and he knew it.
“Alex,” you started trying to stay claim. “There was a reason all our friends envied what we had. It’s because everyone knew that what we had was true, was real,” you told him and you wondered how he had missed it; how he could have ever thought you would leave him. He was everything you had ever wanted, everything you needed. “Alex,” you asked near tears. “Do you remember that last summer before you went away?” He nodded. “I even remember the first time we kissed,” he told you no longer pacing and smiling lightly. “You stole the breath from my lips and I was hooked, you were like a drug,” he said, looking at you; eyes clouded with love.
You smiled back at him, your anger lightening. “We spent that last summer on the beach with all of our friends,” he reminisced. He placed a gently hand on your face, caressing your check. He smiled brightly back at you. “Your smile’s still contagious,” he told you. You laughed lightly, that summer everyone drank too much and the smell of cigarette smoke clung to each and every one of you. “Do you remember walking the beach,” he chuckled. “We tried to count every star. We were determined to count them all,” you remembered fondly.
His hand fell from your face and he placed his forehead against yours. You thought your heart was going to beat out of your chest because of his nearness. It had been almost a year sense he had gotten this close to you. “That wasn’t all we did on that beach,” he whispered. You bite your lip. “No it wasn’t,” you whispered back. “We aren’t kids anymore,” you found yourself saying. He smirked lightly, “No we aren’t kids anymore.”
He pressed his lips gently to yours, as if testing you, making sure you wouldn’t pull away. When you didn’t pull away but instead kissed back he pressed his lips harder to yours. Nearly a year of pint up passion poured out between the two of you. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against your lips. You smiled running your hands through his soft hair. “I’m not sure I forgive you yet,” you told him innocently, smiling. “You know what Karla, we could still be the envy of all our friends,” he said. You loved the sound of that. “You got a lot of making up to do,” you told him. “I know, so I better get started,” he smiled again pressing his lips to yours.
