Love Song (LGBTQ+) (COMPLETED)

40. User

With footsteps long faded, I was the one now left outside alone in the breezy air that only seemed to be getting colder as the minutes meandered by. If the roles were switched, and I was the one who had longed after Grace for so long only to have her stolen, then I probably wouldn't have acted any different towards the girl who did it. If Joanna wanted to hate me, then it was her prerogative to do that much.

I knew very well that I took advantage of Nathan, but it came to a point where I couldn't help but to lean on him. There came a point where my walls came down entirely for him, and as much as I hadn't wanted to, I let him inside. I exposed my feelings and my worst points to him, yet he never said the cruel words I expected to come. I hadn't stopped at just exposing my feelings, my body had followed. It was when he rejected my body for the final time that I had somewhat opened my eyes.

I didn't want to be alone.

It never mattered if it was Nathan or some John Doe, any breathing corpse would have been fine at that time. I veered so far from what I was before, that I my found myself uncaring of what could happen. As I spiraled my way into an early grave, there was always one person there holding my hand like I was a child who needed to be watched. That person was him. Every time I fell, he was there to pick me back up. But there lied the problem. Nathan was more than just a body to me, but at the same time, any warm body would've cured everything.

After I realized that, I tried to push myself away from him. I attempted to bury myself and spiral even further into drugs to the point where even he couldn't stand it. Yet, even as I tried to speedball my way to a quick death, I only found him closer than before. It was as though I was never given a choice in running from him or staying around him, he would have followed me whether I had said yes or no.

A soft, warm material hit my shoulders as a heavier pair of footsteps appeared. "You okay?"

"I will be." I brought the blanket around my arms. "Why is it that you always seem to be around me when something bad happens?"

"Dunno. I just came out for some air and happened to hear everything." his palm tapped the crown of my head as he walked around me and sat to my right. "Kinda sounds like you've been through a lot yourself."

Jay's voice didn't hold pity towards me or what he heard me say. If anything at all, it was something along the lines of understanding. Sometimes it felt like he understood my own feelings better than I did myself, like he was able to read my mind. Perhaps, to someone like Jay, I was just easy to read. It wasn't a stretch to say that he saw right through me, and if I was that easy to read, then it must've been even easier to know what to say.

He remained silent as his hand creeped underneath my hair and lifted it back over my head, revealing his blowing hair as he sat inches away from me. The more time I spent sober, the more I was starting to realize that I always had people around me. If only I had just reached out to someone like Nathan had said, everything might have been different. The scars would've remained, but I wouldn't have had to suffer alone.

"You're a surprisingly good liar when you feel you need to be." Jay's hand fell, his eyes remained frighteningly still. "You made her direct her anger and blame towards you so that she would forgive him, right? Not bad."

"Pretending to be okay your whole life makes it pretty easy." I returned his gaze.

Even as the seconds continued to tick by, his eyes remained locked on mine. It was almost as though he was peering into my body and soul, digging for something that had likely long been buried, destroyed to preserve myself. The only person I had ever seen with those same eyes was the same person who couldn't open them on her own. They both had this ability to dig into and read the human psyche like a book, or maybe that was just what I wanted to think.