My chin rests on his shoulder while my arms are wrapped around him. The tears that are burning my eyes threatening to spill out at any second. I pull away from the embrace but hold his face in my hands, looking into his soft but sad brown eyes. He grabbed one of my hands off of his cheek and moved it to his lips. I closed my eyes as more tears formed.
"I'm so sorry." he mumbled as he kissed my fingertips. Finally, one tear falls. "You don't deserve this. I just can't keep doing this to you." I suck in a sharp breath. This was really it. "I just don't get it." I tell him between quiet sobs. "I'm sorry that I've made this harder than it needed to be for you." I wipe my nose with the sleeve of my hoodie and look back at him as he waits for my reply. "I told you to stop blaming yourself. I knew what I was getting into." He nods. "Yes I know, but I shouldn't have let it go on this long." My stomach turned hearing him say this. I pull my hands away from his face and turn my body around to look out the window. I knew exactly what he meant by that.
"Look at me, baby." I wince as he places his hand on my thigh and because of the fact of how well he knows me. When I don't turn to face him, he continues. "I don't regret it, if that's what you're thinking. Theres probably so much going on in that brain of yours." I smile a little bit and look at him again. "Theres that smile." He runs his thumb along my bottom lip. "Come here." Everything I just promised myself escapes my mind as I slowly lean in and kiss him. My heart flutters and my stomach gets butterflies, just like the first time.
As the kiss deepens, he runs his fingers through my hair and my skin is covered in goosebumps. Every memory I've ever made with him flashes through my mind. Remembering all the ways he's kissed and looked at me so lovingly, all while not loving me. Every memory we've made together had its own slideshow. All the times he's made me sad, or happy, all the times i've been in between his sheets. Nothing hurts more than knowing that this was the end. That this was the last kiss.
Before I know it, my breathing increases. He notices and pulls away to ask if I'm alright. I give up. "Just take me home please." He sighs and looks at me for a few more seconds before putting the car in reverse.
When we arrive at my house, he puts the car in park and rests his head on the steering wheel, his hands on either side still. I close my eyes and build up the courage to open the door without a second glance. He immediately picks his head up and watches as I close the door.
As I walk up to my door, I hear the window go down. "Serena." For the seventh time just this night, my stomach flips completely upside down. The way my name just fell from his lips makes me want to run back to the car and just hold him and tell him that everything was going to be ok because no matter how shitty I felt, every part of me only wanted him to be okay.
I stop in my tracks and turn around to see him getting out of the car. "What are you doing?" I ask as he approaches me. "I don't want it to end like this." He looks down at his shoes as if he's thinking of saying what's on his mind. "I don't want to end it at all." He looks back up at me as I stand, shaking. "Then what do you want to do?"
"I'm just so confused." My body goes stiff as my brain tells myself to run to him and bring him inside and sleep for days, months or until he's ready to love. "Theres nothing to be confused about Joulian, I'm in love with you, and you don't feel the same."
"Except it is confusing because I really don't want to end this." He pauses for a moment. "end us." My heart physically aches as he says this.
I know I would never be able to function the same if I didn't talk to him every day, feel his touch or how he kisses me after he hasn't seen me in so long.
And I think that is what confuses me the most out of everything we have ever been through. How could he do all of these things and not be in love with me? When we kiss, it feels so much more than that and even he has admitted it.
"Serena?" I'm pulled out of my thoughts as he softly calls my name. "I don't know what to say. I've already said everything." He frowns and nods. "I get it" "Good night Joulian." I turn back around and head for my front door.
**
As soon as i enter my house, i wipe underneath my eyes in an attempt to make it look like I haven't been crying all night.
My attempts fail as my mom turns the hallway light on upstairs. "S?" She calls. "I'm home." I tell her while keeping my head down as I walk up the stairs. "Everything alright?" I nod but she knows her daughter better than that.
"Come here." She says softly and thats when i lose it again. My face throbs as i try to fight the urge to cry.
I hold my mom for what feels like hours before she speaks again. "Lets go to sleep." She squeezes my leg before stepping up and reaching out her hand for me to take.
She follows me into my room and pulls the comforter down for me to get in. "I know you don't want to talk right now, but I know it has to do with him." I notice she doesn't say his name which I appreciate because I probably would have broken down again. "But when you are ready to talk, you know i'm here." She continues.
"I love you." I tell her as she kisses me on the forehead. "I love you too S. Try to sleep."
When the door shuts and the hallway light is no longer penetrating into my room, i'm left in the dark with just my thoughts. I wish i could read his mind, see what he isn't telling me. Did he go home and just continue with his regular night routine? Or is he just as sad as I am?
When I tried to end things the first time, I thought I was doing what was best for me. I didn't realize how much I needed him in my life.
Sleep could not have come slower. I so badly wanted to just be able to sleep forever and never think about the aching pain i feel in my chest. But even when it did, i was left dreaming about him. He's going to haunt me forever.
