"Was it real? Was it just as real for you as it was for me?"
"I've never once lied about my feelings for you."
★✩★✩★
Two weeks, two teens, and one conversation was all it took for these teens to develop a connection. It grew until it was broken by s...
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Izzy was gone from my room at the first rays of sunlight. A change of outfit, a quick kiss, and the back of her head was all I saw. Once she was gone, the guilt reached my fingertips. It tore my bed apart. It tossed my clothes all over the place. The dishes were all broken on the floor. My guilt was wafting all around me and there was nothing I could do.
Why couldn't I have just waited for her? It wasn't hard. I had managed well up until the actual moment. And all I could do was lie to Izzy and give her reassurance where there was none.
How could I do that to her? But I couldn't stop myself from allowing herself the reassurance she sought. Even if it was at the expense of my mental capacity. I thought I had told myself that we weren't even a real thing or anything that could be real. We had the pact between us and that was my trump card.
But it was wrong. I knew it deep down inside and on the surface. Cassie had called me out on it too. I was hiding once more. Hiding behind a lie, not a secret.
I made her think she was the first. How was I going to tell her? I'd probably never need to. It could be something that stayed with me and the few that knew. Maybe it'd all blow over in a few years when it was finally told. I'd probably forget by then too.
I don't think I could handle her betrayed face staring at me, confirming her thoughts about me if it was revealed before I left. And maybe I was making it a bigger deal. It was simply sex, anyone could have sex with anyone. It didn't matter and Izzy had made it clear that she didn't want to have sex with someone she loved, just someone she trusted.
Would that trust still hold up if she learned I was untrustworthy this entire visit?
It was all wrong, especially my choice on the night of my birthday. I was filled to the brink was alcohol for the first time and I wanted freedom. I had needed a single night to not think, to just be a teenager and I ended up doing the wrong thing. The first misstep of many to come.
It didn't help that I didn't know who I wanted more. Who I trusted myself with and who saw through me the way I wanted. Maybe I didn't like either of them if I was willing to betray both of them. One was always waiting for me to return to them, hoping that they'd get me, but I was tired of being 'owned' too.
I couldn't ever be my own person.
"Gage?" Cassie's voice rang.
"Cassie, in here!" I lightly yelled through my tight throat.
"What happened?"
Everything in the room that I was hiding in was on the floor. I had thrown the lamp, I threw the dressers on their side. The bed was torn up, sheets and blankets everywhere, my clothes mixed in with them. I had a tantrum as I was just as confused as Izzy. I didn't know what to do anymore. I had lost my grip on the world once again and this time, he wasn't near to calm me.
The one person who was innocent in my entire life, who had done no worse things than Izzy. He was at home, waiting for me. The one person I was co-dependent on. I wanted him more at this moment, to breathe him in than anything. But I had left him, like I had left her and how I left Izzy.
