warnings: sad?
You never wanted your relationship with your boyfriend to become public, simply because you knew that you wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure for too long. But this is exactly what was happening right now.
People expected all sorts of things from you. You felt like you had to put on an act and pretend like you were someone else because the public wouldn't allow you to be anything less than the façade that you tried to keep up at all costs.
Loving him was supposed to feel easy, not forced or like you were under surveillance all the time. But now it felt like a responsibility and in the end, it was either your relationship or your sanity that would suffer someday.
So, you made your decision.
"We could watch a movie?"
Your boyfriend asked and pulled you back into reality, as he reached for your hand on the kitchen table. You mustered his face for a second, before looking back down onto your plate.
"Maybe we could go for a walk?" You suggested instead. "I need some fresh air."
He nodded and began to clean up the dishes, but you stopped him.
"Can we go? Like, right now?" You urged and earned a surprised look from Brad, but you simply stood up.
"Of course." He finally said and the two of you headed outside.
The cold September air hit you unexpectedly as the previous week was a lot warmer than this.
"I should've brought a jacket."
Brad read your mind, as the two of you began to walk away from your apartment while shivering in your t-shirts. He kissed the side of your head, causing your heart to flutter at the soft touch of his warm lips on your freezing skin.
Maybe this wasn't the right thing to do, after all.
Maybe there was another way.
But the sight of a few people standing a bit further away while obviously staring into your direction and taking pictures with their phones of the two of you quickly reminded you why you wanted to do this.
"Brad, I need to talk with you." You began, causing him to abruptly stop walking and stare at you with furrowed eyebrows.
"Of course, babe. What do you want to talk about?"
The two of you sat down onto a bench that was placed in a quieter section of the park, as you watched the sky become darker the later it got while the bright lights of the city moved in the rhythm of its' peoples' lives.
"About us." You finally spoke up, while taking a short glance at your boyfriend.
He bit his lower lip as he took your hand into his, squeezing it tightly as if he knew what you were about to say.
"What about us?" He muttered with his eyes fixated on yours.
"Brad, I –" You began, but the words wouldn't come out.
There was so much you wanted to talk about, so much you wanted to say but as soon as you had found the courage to do so, it seemed as if you had forgotten how to speak at all.
He raised an eyebrow but didn't dare to interrupt you as the tenseness that was radiating from your body made him more and more anxious with every silent second that would pass.
"I can't do this anymore." The words came out as a whisper, but he heard them all.
His eyes began to desperately search your face for any sign that this might be a joke or that he didn't understand it correctly, but the serious look on your face made his heart drop in an instant.
"You can't do what?" He carefully asked you.
You took your trembling hand away from his also increasingly shaking one and first pointed at him and then at you. "This. I can't do this anymore."
Brad tore his eyes away from yours and frantically began to look up, a mannerism you had observed him do whenever he was about to cry.
"Why?" He tried to hide how broken he felt but his voice cracked, nonetheless.
"It's just too much." You tried to explain, voice equally as shaky. "The attention. Being in the public eye non-stop. Our relationship. Everything we do, is being watched, everything is being controlled but just not by us. This doesn't feel like love anymore, more like an obligation to your company and fans."
You let out a long sigh as you were finally glad that these words had come out but looking at Brad made you regret everything you said almost instantly. He was still looking up, trying to avoid your gaze at all costs, but now tears were continuously streaming down his face.
It went silent except for the quiet sniffles that came from the man next to you. Finally, he wiped his tears away and you could sense how uneasy he felt about crying in front of you.
"I can't stand the thought of loosing you." Brad finally spoke up as he turned to you, bottom lip trembling. "I just can't lose you. You're the only thing that's keeping me sane in this world and I don't know how long I could survive without you in it." He confessed and you stared at him, as it was now your turn to be surprised.
"I'm sorry that you have felt this way for god knows how long, but please know that I will always be there for you and I will do everything that I can to make you feel like this relationship is still worth fighting for. Because for me it had never stopped feeling this way." He concluded, voice a lot steadier now as he reached for your hand once more.
You didn't retreat and embraced his warm touch while being completely overwhelmed by his words.
"Brad, I'm sorry." You finally said after another intermission that was filled with silence. "it was very selfish of me to try to break up with you. I guess I just didn't know how to handle all of these things that I had been feeling in the previous weeks. Running away has always seemed easiest to me."
He nodded and kept watching you, as you began to play with the seam of your shirt. "But now I know that there is no need to run when I have you by my side."
He finally exhaled that breath that he unknowingly held for so long, as the tensions drifted from your shoulders and you embraced him in a tight hug.
"I will always be by your side, Y/N. As long as you want me to."
