Loved but Broken

Car drive

Alex made sure to keep his gaze out side of the window, to stop himself from staring at Adrian. Soon Alex was completely lost in his own thoughts, 'He's cute, yes, but I can't fall for him, firstly, I just met him and secondly, he's probably with somebody else. But then again, he looked at me differently than how other people look at me-'

"Alex?" Adrian's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Yes?"
"I've been saying your name for ages." Adrian started to chuckle to himself, "What were you thinking about?" He looked at Alex briefly before turning back to the road. "Nothing important." Alex started to fiddle with the bottoms of his sleeve. Nervous habit.

"Right. Anyway, left or right?" Alex looked up again, "Erm, left." Silence fell between them again. Alex couldn't help but look at Adrian, his face was so focused on the road. Alex noticed that whenever another driver made a stupid mistake on the road, instead of shouting like other drivers, Adrian just tightly clenched his jaw.

Alex didn't know if that was what he always did, or if he was just doing it because he had a guest in his car.
"You're staring." Alex jumped a little in his chair and mentally slapped himself for getting caught. "Sorry, I was just noticing that you never shout, or call people out when they do stupid things on the road, like most people." The smile on Adrian's face didn't last long.
"I'm not most people, Alex." Alex thought for a moment, wondering if he should ask his next question.

"Why don't you?" He finally asked. There was a moment of silence.
"Why don't I shout?"
"Yeah, I mean, my mum does, and Dom does a lot, and don't even get me started on Daisy." Alex laughed to himself, remembering the time him and Daisy were stuck behind an old man on the motorway, and Daisy wouldn't stop screaming out the window. His thoughts were cut of once again, by Adrian.

"I once was with someone who seemed amazing at first but ended up not being so amazing," he paused, "after a few months, he started to get aggressive." Alex quickly look back at Adrian.

"He?" Adrian glanced at Alex for a moment before carrying on.
"Yeah, his true colours soon started showing and... it was horrible. He used to shout at random things and hit me at random times, it wasn't great. But for some reason I stayed with him, I thought I could change him." Adrian shook his head, tears prickling at his eyes, he tried swallowing it down, focusing on the road.

Alex noticed that talking about this was starting to hurt Adrian.
"Hey, I'm sorry."
"Don't be, it's all in the past now. He ended up moving away and I haven't seen him since. Not that I want to."
"Right." Alec gazed back out of the window, regretting asking his question.
"Alex?"
"Yeah?" He turned to Adrian. Adrian was clutching on to the stirring wheel with so much strength and anger that his knuckles were going white.

"Never, and I mean never, think that you can change someone. Because you can't. No one can. Once someone already thinks one way or acts one way, there is no changing them. Even if you're so sure that you can, just don't, you'll just end up hurting yourself." His lasts words were barely a mumble, but Alex understood what he was saying.
He didn't want to say anything that could get Adrian more mad or upset, so he decided just to nod and look back out the window.

By the time it hit eleven thirty they had arrived at Alex's house.

"Thanks for driving me, and sorry for turning this into an emotional drive." Adrian turned to face Alex, smiling, his brown eyes sparkling.
"Don't worry about it." At that Alex got out the car.

"Night Adrian."
"Night Alex."

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Night