Best + Bitter = Better

Six days after

Geoff is sat crying in his car; a street away from the man that changed his life. To think that he ever had a chance with the most brilliant person in the world is insane. He never had a chance, even if he knew everything at the start.

He clears his eyes, for the most part, turns on the car and puts it into gear. All Time Low plays in his ears and faint memories of him and Awsten singing along to it echo in his brain. He drives. He doesn't know where he's going, but he doesn't care. Why did he have to fuck things up? What the hell is wrong with him? He sets off.

It doesn't take long for him to decide that driving isn't safe when you have a headache from crying so hard and tears blurring your vision. He's on the highway. Then he's not. Then he's at a beach that his sister used to take him to when he was little - it was always when he was upset about something. Those things seem petty now. He didn't understand how his sister put up with his problems when she surely had bigger ones of her own.

He sighs and gets out, sand crumbling under his feet. The hue of the warm-tone sand is as gentle as a vintage photograph. The sun is setting, yellow and orange mixing together with a golden orb sinking in the middle of it. He stumbles down to where he always used to sit; in the middle of the beach and halfway down to the water. He drops down into the sand, knees first. His fists crash down into the soft grains in angst and annoyance. He is so fucking stupid.

The flowers that were once strapped into the front of his car are now in a bin somewhere down the street from Awsten's house. It was better than throwing himself in the bin. Once Mark shut the door in his face, he hesitated before leaving. He wanted to knock furiously at the door until Awsten opened it and he wanted to confess his love and he wanted Awsten to embrace him and say he loves him too. But none of that happened. He walked away. He didn't deserve Awsten and he knew it. He speed walked down the path and then down the street, passing a bin on the way to his car.

His feet are cold. His feet are wet. He wakes with a start. The sky is black and the stars are already out. They glow as if they kept a pocket of daytime to shine all through the night sky. The water is just before his body, licking at his feet. He scrambles to get up and runs back up the beach.

He reaches his car and gets in, he pauses to catch his breath. He drives. He coasts down the familiar track, trees on either side of him that protect him from falling off the cliff. He drives. He drifts down the highways and looks at the stars. He hears an awful scuffing sound and looks to the car next to him. Somebody has scraped his car. He looks to the road ahead of him, he's in the middle of two lanes. He scraped somebody's car.

Little does he know that if he didn't scrape that car then the driver of that car would have fallen asleep. This would have caused them to veer off into the side of the highway, which would have led them to crash into a tree at sixty miles an hour. Little does he know that that driver is a single mum with a 10-month-old child in the back seat.

He carries on. He glances over at the 2+ lane. A lump forms in his throat, but he swallows it down and tears his eyes away. This is going to be a long night.