drive | david dobrik

"It's not your fault."

Waking up the next morning was weird. David had stayed the night before and they spent hours talking and stealing occasional kisses before finally drifting off to sleep. Ren couldn't remember a time that she was this happy. Looking at David beside her, she couldn't stop smiling. She couldn't stop thinking about everything that has happened last night. And with the happiness she felt she also felt a slight sadness. Ren was sad because, for the first time in two years, the first thing on her mind when she woke up, wasn't Jem. But however sad that made her, she couldn't deny just how happy David had made her.

Eventually she stopped looking at the sleeping boy on her bed and she got up to get started on her busy day. She was dressed and out the door with Toothless within 10 minutes of getting out of bed. Her walk with Toothless was short. He immediately went to the bathroom and was begging to go home within 5 minutes of leaving her apartment. As she walked through the door she saw that David had woken up and was making breakfast.He turned and smiled at her, taking the food he had made back to her room and telling her to follow him. 

Ren was supposed to be filling out job applications at some point today but every time she tried David would pull her back down on the bed where they had spent most of the day doing absolutely nothing. She had decided last night while her and David were talking that she needed a job. She still had the money she had saved and her parents were giving her enough money to pay her rent but she never liked taking money from her parents. It always made her feel as if she owed them something. 

Before they knew it Scott had called and David had to go. He kissed her one last time and walked out the door promising he would be over again in the morning. 

Ren heard a knock on her door and expected it to be a neighbor, or David because he was the only one who knew where she lived. But when she opened the door she saw Liza. The smile on her face immediately disappeared and it was replaced with a wave on anxiety.

But Liza wasn't there to fight her or anything. Instead, she hugged her. At first Ren didn't know what to do but eventually she hugged her back. She could hear Liza whispering sorry over and over again. But Ren didn't know why she would be sorry. Liza had none nothing wrong. 

They stood in the doorway for almost ten minutes just hugging. Once Liza let go Ren could see that she had been crying.

"Are you okay Liza?"

Liza looked up and smiled. "You are so selfless and kind and all I ever did was push you away. I didn't know I was doing it. But I saw the way you and David looked at each other and I couldn't take it. I got mean and and I was angry. I thought you were stealing him away. But you weren't. We hadn't been good for a while and we were ready to end things. I just couldn't admit it. I couldn't see what I needed to see so when you came along and the two of you got really close I projected all those feelings onto you and I'm sorry, Ren. You didn't deserve that. No one deserves that."

Ren just looked at her. Because this whole time she thought that she stole David away from Liza and that she had ended a good thing. As it turns out, they were both wrong. They had both blamed themselves when it wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. Things happen. 

So Ren told her exactly that. "It's not your fault. None of it is. Things happen. Things like this happen and it sucks. But it will get better and someone else will come along that makes you forget all about it, if even just for a brief second. The pain does go away and no matter what happens, he will always be there for you. He loved you Liza, and that doesn't just go away. He will always care for you and he will always support you. You just have to let him, when you're ready."

They were both crying when she finished because Liza couldn't believe how sweet and sympathetic Ren was being to her, and Ren had just realized that she was in love with David Dobrik. But what had made her cry wasn't the fact that she loved him, but was the realization that you can love more than one person at the same time. She loved both David and Jem, but in two spectacularly different ways. She had loved Jem because it was easy, it made sense. She loved David because she couldn't find a single reason not to. She knew what she had with Jem was great, but what she could have with David could be magical. As a kid you always think you're parents are soulmates, but Ren knew her kids would be right.