taping eggshells

seven\question marks

seven\question marks

Jay was like a fall breeze.

He was clear, fresh, and a little chilling. But he was what was needed after a hot, dry summer. He had girls with him all the time, but was always moving along past them like a ghost, leaving only memories, nothing tangible. I always thought though, he looked at Mila differently. Jay didn't express it in a specific dramatic way, or even in a very obvious manner. It didn't need to be said.

It was in the way the corner of his lips would just curl up like a reflex to her name, and in the way he would always just lean in a little closer to her, to hear her voice a little clearer. It was in the way he welcomed her into our space, at any time, at any moment.

Jay always welcomed her.

But he never accepted her.

---

Jay's p.o.v

If I could would I turn back time?

Hell, I don't know. I probably ask that question to myself way too often to not have an answer by now. Five years I've asked myself and five years I've looked in the mirror guilty because I can't answer. Would I turn back time to that night, the night I took what I could have and thrown it down the gutter so far I could barely make out the traces of it now?

Mila knows the answer but I don't.

Because honestly I don't know if I could stand what not throwing it away would mean.

---

As long as I could remember, I've hated Mila.

Hated the way she looked in the pink dresses, hated her sugary voice and her large smiles. I detested her optimism, the untainted view she had of the world. Innocence and pure hearted. To me it was disgusting and made me want to puke. I always burned when she came over all the time without asking me and stepped right past the boundaries that should have been mountain high walls. But she didn't give a shit about emotional boundaries, she was so different from everyone else. She cared and she didn't mind what caring meant.

Mom and dad said caring was sticking through thick and thin with the other person.

That was all they had left. At least they still had the care, even if love was stripped away and only hate remained. There was still the care that bound them together and tied me with unbreakable chains right in the center of it all.

I didn't want to be part of Mila's center.

I didn't want her radiating figure next to me, always there, always caring. So I did what I had to do, what I always end up doing: I fucked it up. I took her care and fed it to the dogs. I took her heart and pushed it off the edge of a building and let it splatter all over the dirt ground. I took whatever special feelings she had for me and pushed it aside in the coldest way possible.

I slept with her best friend.

And Mila was never the same again.

The guilt is sometimes unbearable. If I close my eyes I can see her facial expression crystal clear. The stricken look in her eyes, the small gap of her open mouth, the quivering of her lower lip. I saw her and I could almost hear the sound of her heart breaking. It takes over me and shakes me to the core, breaks me on the very inside like the way I broke her, leaving no room for apology, no place for take-backs.

If I knew I would cause her not to love properly again, would I not do it?

The part of me that admits I care for her answers no, that I would not make that same decision again. But the larger, selfish and cowardly self knows that I would. That even if I knew I would do it anyway. Because I'd rather not have her bound me with the chains and keep me always in fear that I would turn out to be like my parents. Even if it meant sacrificing Mila, I'd do it anyway because I was a coward.

But the guilt never changes, and never will.

So I can only hope for Mila's happiness, that someone else can take her out of her maze and bring her back to that innocence, that purity. Even if that person isn't me.

Even if I would forever just love her alone.

---

Mila woke me from my dreams.

I had a massive headache and the dull realization my lip was crusted. I remembered flashes of the night before, the drinking, the accidental kiss. I should apologize I thought, but it wasn't the first time something like that had happened, and it wasn't the first time I had played it off.

"Need some coffee?" she asked me, her face close.

I could see the very blacks in the center of my eyes and the thick brown lashes that surrounded her caramel colored irises. She was happy, radiating. Her hands were on her hips and she was looking at me curiously.

"You're way too hung over." She said, laughing while turning away to the coffee machine that was on top of Coan's refrigerator.

Coan looked disheveled, his hair sticking up at random places, his shirt slipping at awkward angles, not being able to hold itself together. I looked at Mila's messy brown hair and listened to her hum Taylor Swift. The atmosphere was different. I scratched the back of my head. It was obvious what had happened last night between them. I could see the faint traces of Mila's scratches on Coan's back and smell her summer scent on him.

What words should I say? I wondered.

Could I play this off like usual or would I continue to watch Mila go down the path?

"Stop staring at get into the shower." She told me, thrusting the cup of coffee at me.

"Stop being a mom Mila," I replied with a lazy smirk. "When did you get so old?" I drank the coffee in two big glad gulps.

She scowled.

"If you didn't get so fucked up all the time I wouldn't have to be a mom."

I laughed.

Inside I was sad, just a little. But it didn't matter. So I got up and went to the bathroom, letting Mila stay alone in the room with Coan. She was sitting on my bed, knees pulled close to her chest, with her coffee mug in hand, looking at Coan fumble around to find a comb for her with a familiar gaze. It was something I wasn't prepared for.

So I closed the bathroom door and pressed my body against it, surrendering my weight.

She was going to move on. My Mila was going to move on.

I entered the shower and turned the knob all the way to the left, heat on max. It burned down my face, trickling down my neck, throwing against my back, thawing the frozen part of me. I wanted the tears to come, so I could release the pent up emotions in me but tears refused to form. They knew this would happen one day and they refused to give me my release. It was punishment.

My hands balled into a fist thinking of her and Coan being happy together. I wanted Mila to be happy. That was what I wanted right? So I let go of my fists and pressed my forehead to the cool tile, surrendering the anger.

Say Mila, if you were me what would you have done?

----

i personally loved this chapter. i really wanted to include more about jay but i didn't know how to do it. so i decided i might as well just let jay narrate himself :)

let me know what you guys thought of him and the things he did!

dont forget to comment and vote!