I waited until María finished her competition in Geneva. We watched the whole show on TV, everyone in our crew there watching my beautiful girlfr- sorry, exgirlfriend. God, I hated that word. I hope she’d forgive me, otherwise I’d go completely nuts. She was gorgeous. Today she had a dressage competition. She and Stella “danced” to All Star by Smash Mouth perfectly and, surprise surprise, they won the first place. Once the dressage competition was finished and the TV programme started to show a dancing competition, I turned to the bottle of Jack and after a few minutes of walking around the outside of the bus and drinking, I decided to call.
“Jack?”
I froze when I heard her confused and slightly broken voice. I’ve done this to her. Jack, stop blaming yourself. It was a mutual, major fuck up, I reminded myself but I knew it was me who started it first. I wanted to tell her some excuse, not wanting to talk to her about this anymore, but my drunk brain had other plans.
“Hey” I greeted, my voice was showing I was drunk.
“Hi… Wait, are you drunk?” she asked, her voice getting a bit thick. I smiled when I heard her greeting me, but my smile fell when I heard her thickened voice.
“Just a bit” I laughed hysterically. Well, maybe too drunk.
“Ugh, yeah… what did you want?” I heard her hold back a sob.
“I-I wanted to apologize”
“You don’t have to-“ she started, but I cut her off. I didn’t get drunk tonight for no reason.
“Yes I do” I said as firmly as possible. “And I’m sorry for not calling you earlier, before all of this got worse, but I thought I was ready to tell you” I blurred out I felt tears starting to well up in my eyes.
“I love you and I’m so so so sorry for what I did. I really am. I came to you and asked you something I knew was a still touchy subject but I kept throwing it at you. And the worst part is that I didn’t stop when you started to cry. I was a douche and a complete asshole, and I realized it too late.” I started to cry, I heard her cry too.
“I miss you and I’m so sorry for what I did. You are a beautiful person who deserves to be loved and you had enough putting up with Mikel” she sobbed even harder this time. I paused to give her time to take all of that in.
“Y-You know about our r-relationship?” I felt her shake.
“Shh, shh. Honey, it’s okay. Yeah, I do know about it a bit, and I’m sorry. I should’ve waited for you to answer or let you explain me about it little by little, but I couldn’t contain myself and that call just…” I let out an angry groan. “I miss you, and I love you. I know I’ve fucked up but, please forgive me?” I begged. Before she could answer, I added “I won’t be your boyfriend if you don’t want me to, but please forgive me. I don’t know what I’d do without you, seriously” I cried, holding my phone tightly and waiting for her to answer.
“Of course I forgive you, Jack” she cried. “And I should’ve let you in instead of pushing you away. I’m sorry” I smiled to myself. She forgave me.
“I still love you” I smiled softly. I felt her smile against her phone.
“I still love you too” she added with happy tears making their way into her voice.
Ugh, finally.

---

I woke up next day to a massive hangover, but I didn’t mind once some bits of last night’s events and smiled again, I’m sure I looked like an idiot but fuck that. I woke up in my bunk, I guess one of the guys had dragged my ass here, even though I stayed around the bus last night. I got up and walked to the small kitchen, looking for some Advil and getting some water.
“Hey, look who’s up” Rian walked to me, followed by Alex.
“I couldn’t sleep” I stated trying to hide a smile.
“So, how did it go?” Alex asked sitting next to me.
“As far as I remember, it went fantastic” I smirked. “She forgave me” my smile got bigger.
The guys cheered and slapped my shoulder when Zack came in with a worried look in his face.
“What’s up, man?” I asked.
“I went to run for a while when I came across this kiosk and saw this” I looked at an equestrian magazine her had placed in front of me. María on the cover jumping with Stella. The picture only showed Stella’s head, all of her neck and her shoulders and María was leaning over her with her hands stuck to her mane and looking ahead of her, holding back a small smile.
I smiled softly to her face, but I felt Zack’s worried eyes on something else in the photo, Alex seem to notice too as he frowned and breathed in deeply. Rian also got it and gave me an apologetic look.
“What?” I asked looking at the photo carefully. Alex hesitated before poiting to María hands. I looked at her hands and moved to her wrist. I froze right there. Just under her sleeve you could see dark red lines across her wrists, but they were covered nicely by her long sleeved black jacket.
Shit.

Notes

I feel like shit right now. I've been 8 days without puking and I feel like a fat piece of shit and I just relapsed. Fuck.
Well, at least I have you guys and tomorrow I'll be riding my favourite horse, hopefully :)

Title credit: I Miss You by Blink 182.