Fix You ~Completed~

Act One

"We accept the love we think we deserve."
●Perks of Being a Wallflower●
_____

"Honey, are you happy?"

I am a lot of things. I am curious, I am absent-minded at times, I am thin, I am quiet, I am a child in a grown person's body... but I am not happy.

The truth is, though, that they don't want to hear this. Nobody wants to hear that you're unhappy because they'll either get uncomfortable due to the fact they don't know how to react or refuse to believe you're actually telling the truth and not just starved for attention.

I nodded when my mom asked this question. I put on my best smile and wore it for a whole day, displaying it in the same way I would have displayed a straight-A report card or a signed copy of my favorite book. She didn't point out I never actually answered with words; a simple gesture was all she got and all she'd ever get. It felt like less of a lie then. I felt like less of a liar.

"Did your lie hurt anyone?" my only friend had asked when I went to him with my problem. We were in his basement, some kind of cigarette in between Kyla's lips. Despite the years of abuse he put those lips through, I had to admit they looked pretty soft. In between my own was a single licorice whip I'd been nibbling on for a good ten minutes.

I shook my head.

"See? It's fine then. Your mom has no way of measuring your fucking happiness. If you told her the truth, she'd just waste money sending you to the doctor to have your head examined. That's pricey shit, Clem," Kyla huffed with a swift puff of his smoke. I watched it collect in the air above him and slowly drift upwards, like a feather in reverse. My friend sent me a questioning glance I responded to with a drop of my head. "You think you need to have your head examined?"

"Might not be a bad idea," I admitted, my fingers lightly squeezing my wrist. The pain was nothing but a dull sting now, but I could still feel how harsh and aching it had been when the marks were made.

"No. Before you turn to that, turn to me. I'm your friend," he instructed, extending the hand that held his cigarette to me. My whole face heated up. He was offering me something he had touched with his lips. Sure, it was a nasty cigarette, but he wanted my lips on it. He was practically asking for an indirect kiss. Oh god.

At my look of apprehension, he scoffed. "It won't kill you, Jesus."

I took the cancer stick and gave him a confused frown. "You are such an idiot sometimes," he huffed, reaching out and doing a demonstration for me of how to properly smoke. I didn't want to do it, but I liked the strange intimacy. "Now, try it yourself, goody-two-shoes."

That was the first and last time I tried smoking. Kyla snatched the cigarette from me and thwacked me upside the head. "Don't fucking inhale it!" he snapped. "Can't you do anything? Damn it, Clem."

I stared up at him, my eyes watering from the smoke. "I-I'm sorry."

"Idiot," he grumbled before slumping back down on the couch beside me and going back to his smoking. "I thought with your love of having things in between your lips, you'd rock at this."

"Kyla!" I hissed, covering my face to hide the prominent blush.

"What?"

"D-don't... I'm n-not..." I shivered, turning away.

"Hey, I thought you didn't believe in lying?" he teased, bumping our knees. "I'm not stupid, you know? I can see what's plainly in front of me."

Just my luck, Mom picked that exact moment to call my cell-phone. I got off the couch, muttering that I had to go, but Kyla took my arm. "Just so you know, I have nothing against gays," he informed me with a stern look. "As long as you don't try making a move on me, we'll be cool, okay? But if I see you so much as look at me for a second longer than necessary-"

"You're not my type," I said quickly, wrenching myself away from him.

"Then why were you staring so intensely at my lips, huh? Were you imagining them touching yours?"

No.

"No," I echoed the lie I concocted in my head, my body sharing the warmth that was slowly eating away at my face. Kyla stroked my wrist and I nearly collapsed. I found myself sitting beside him again on the couch instead, my arm being held up to his mouth. While Kyla rolled down my hoodie sleeve, his eyes never left mine. "K-Kyla, what are you...?"

A single kiss to my first. Two to my second. Three to my third. And so on.

When Kyla came to the most recent, he lifted his head up and leaned closer to me. "I knew it," he whispered. My eyes got wide as he shoved me back. "I fucking knew it! Damn it, get out, okay? Please. I don't need someone like you in my life."

"K-Kyla?" I stammered, stumbling towards him. I took Kyla's arm. "Don't hate me! Please? Please, I just... I can't help it. I'd never make a move on you or look at you wrong! You're so-"

"I'm so what? Appealing? Perfect?" The only thing that could have made that moment worse was if he had spat in my face. I think he honestly wanted to. "Out. I am not going to waste my time with you."

I broke any resolve I had. "I love you! I love you, K-Kyla. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, don't l-leave me. Don't make me leave, Kyla."

My phone stopped ringing when Kyla kissed me.