❝In which two people call up a helpline in order to find someone just as broken as they are. ❞
"Does...does it bother you that my dad's in prison for murder?"
"Well, judging by the fact that I moved away from America to get away from the memory of a...
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"I feel like such a proud parent right now," sighed Eddie, Vaughn's rather eccentric boyfriend, as he stared out onto the porch. He was knelt down next to the window sill, resting his head on the palm of his hand as he continued to listen in to the conversation. Both Isabella and Shane had been too caught up in themselves to notice the halt of the music. Or the fact that the entirety of the party had crowded around the window to see what was going on. They just continued to smile and laugh together, completely oblivious to the watching eyes that were struggling to hear the conversation through the glass of the window.
Vaughn laughed and wrapped an arm around his boyfriend's shoulder. "I know what you mean. It's been a while since I've seen him smile." He then shook his head in disbelief, a regretful smile passing onto his lips as he continued to study the ex-superstar. "It's kind of weird. But it's also kind of nice." Eddie nodded in happy agreement and the couple descended into silence once more.
Elliot leaned against the wall just next to the window, studying the scene playing out in front of him with a level of scrutiny that he didn't know he could possess. It was the sort of thing he had been missing when he had dated Maddie, that sort of surging fire of emotions that sparked from a single action. A single thought. A horrible, terrible thought that the person you have become to like might be better suited to someone else. He couldn't quite explain the feeling, but it was almost a sort of fear. It surged up his spine and straight into his brain, sending signals of fury all the way down to his clenched fists. But it wasn't the kind of anger spawned from hatred. Oh no, this was something quite different. This anger was created by fear. The disgusting, nagging feeling that the person he believed to be best for him was better placed with someone else.
He had found something in Isabella that he couldn't quite explain. A sort of confusing, tremulous relationship that somehow ended up making a lot of sense. He had found more confidence in her than he had in himself. With her, he had found a way for the skin to heal while still keeping the scars; he had found a way to swim without drowning. And the idea that the light he had found would prefer to shine in another darkness filled him with a ridiculous amount of fear. Because, if she was better suited to someone else, then she wasn't suited for him but he would still be suited to her and then...and then he would just fall apart. She had been the thing building him back up. Slowly, brick by brick. Her leaving would bring it all tumbling back down once more. And he couldn't have that. He couldn't. Because the beautiful wall they had been building together would collapse onto him, vines that had once been flowers curling around his throat until he struggled to breathe. Green, poisonous, vines of envy that reminded him. Reminded him each day that the helping hand he had needed was grasping onto someone else, pulling them out of their darkness and leaving him to drown.
And, as he watched the two laugh together, his heart drowned in that fear. All he could see was Isabella slipping into someone else's ocean, and he didn't really see the point in staying afloat if she wasn't in the ocean to see. But he also understood. And it was okay. If she was happier with someone else, so be it. If she found someone else's waters to be easier to swim in, so be it. He didn't see the point in dragging her back into his current if only to watch her drown. He supposed that he would just have to be happy to watch her stay afloat, no matter who it was with. And, if he had to watch that from underwater as he suffocated in his own self, then so be it.
