Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

I clicked through my computer, searching intently with my earphones in playing nothing special louder than any of the noise the boys could make. We’d been parked up in Allentown for over an hour now. I’d immediately unloaded the trailer and returned to my bunk, hardly speaking to anyone, except to say hi to the other merch guys and smiling briefly at people I recognised but had otherwise not interacted with. I wanted to seem normal, despite the inner turmoil I was dealing with.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for, my index finger hovering over my laptop trackpad, trying to force myself to click the button. I’d spent more of the last fifteen minutes connecting myself to the internet than I had searching through iTunes. I was still hopeless with technology, despite all my attempts to keep up to date and knowledgeable. I was useless, honestly.
The four boys stared out at me from their header as my cursor lingered over the ‘buy’ button. Did I even want to subject myself to 45 minutes of Alex crooning about our past? The meltdown I’d had last night told me I needed to, but I was still apprehensive. There were some things I was happier not knowing, but I had a feeling that I was going to have to face up to this part of my life sooner or later. I’d rather I did it on my own terms, rather than Alex’s. The curtain to my bunk was closed for the sake of privacy, so I wouldn’t have five concerned boys clucking over me the moment I got a little too emotional. I knew it would happen.
Taking a breath, I clicked the button, quickly confirming my card details before I could talk myself out of it. I had to do this. I had to know what he’d put out there, what people knew about our past, so I wouldn’t be surprised once again tonight. I wasn’t willing to sit on this rollercoaster much longer, and the only way I was getting off was by myself.
While I had been sitting through their set for the last two nights, I had heard literally two of the songs from this album in their entirety. Most of the other songs had a familiar tune, meaning they had been played and I’d garnered that much information on them, but the words didn’t sound familiar. I guess my tactic of burying my head in the sand had been working at least a little.
For the most part, it was better than I’d expected. In other ways, it was way worse. I could see at least a little of myself in most of the songs, which seemed over the top. I didn’t like consistent reminders. I was the main topic of discussion in, maybe, three or four songs, in others I was a line tops. But I was there. Some of them were sweet, others were infuriating. I feel like I poured his love into some syllables and his hate into others, and I didn’t know what pissed me off more.
I’d had it coming, of course. Who was I waltz into his life, turn it on its head and walk back out? Clearly, there was a little revenge due on his part. Much more on my part, but irrelevant and not my style. I wasn’t here for vengeance, I was here for closure.
Shameless had me feeling like I wanted to storm over to his bus and just punch him in the face. What did he mean he was making the things I said less obvious? What was so obvious? Judging from the rest of the song, it was my being either disinterested or downright bitchy. Neither of which were ever true when it came to Alex. Out of the both of us, he was the most disinterested, not I. And bitchy? Sure, to everyone else. I don’t think I’d ever been deliberately cruel to Alex, but he and I had had a lot of fun over the months being bitchy about the people we didn’t like.
I scowled at my laptop at the memory of the one person we’d spent most of our relationship making bitchy jokes about. Who’d have known Alex didn’t find her as infuriating as I did?
Six Feet Under the Stars and Holly were a little more problematic. I wanted to sympathise with him, I really did, but I was still so angry about everything else he’d done. ‘You made me, you broke me, you saved me’ screamed the way I’d felt for the last two years, the exact way I’d felt leaving him. He showed me that it was okay to let my guard down around him, to let him in and enjoy what we had, before he ripped it all out from under me and left me worse off than I had been before I had met him. He knew what he’d done, he knew how broken I’d been and how broken he had made me. I missed the girl I’d been with him. I missed how happy I’d been, how untroubled I’d been despite my glaring insecurities.
If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you I’d been a confident teenager: outgoing, untroubled by anything and happy with my life. Today I’d tell you I’d been broken, somewhere in my teenage years, and didn’t know how to trust other people before I met Alex. Marissa and Jack, sure I let them in, trusted them, but they had been in my life since before puberty and I’d let them in long before I’d been broken, but even my trust in them had its limits. I couldn’t admit my vulnerabilities to them, even when they already knew it.
I pulled the buds from my ears, pushing my shoes on and opening a new text to Jack.
Where are you guys?
We’ve gone out for lunch. Café down the street if you wanna join.
Alex?
Went back to mope at the bus, you’re safe, promise.
I threw my phone back into the bunk, making my way quickly out of the bus without saying anything to any of the boys when they asked where I was going. I knew I looked stupid, rushing off like this, without a word, but clearly that was my forte. Running from people who loved me.
I was out of breath in the two minute run I had to find their bus. I knocked loudly, but not violently. I knew it was better to get this over with, and knocking softly was going to have me waiting out here longer than I was ready for.
“We need to talk,” I told him as I pushed past him onto the bus. Alex stared at me, dumbfounded, as I stood in front of their lounge table. The bus was almost identical to the one I had just left, though looked a little larger and somewhat fancier than ours. Nothing extreme, but just a little better here and there. I noticed all of this while doing my best not to look at Alex’s bare chest and dishevelled hair, telling me I’d pretty much either just woken him up from a nap, or an attempt at one.
“I, uh- sit down,” he told me, stuttering slightly. “Let me go get changed.” He rushed into the back, still somewhat disoriented, as I took a seat. I didn’t blame him. This was as much as surprise to me as it was to him. Two days. That’s all it had taken. I’d continued to hate him for two days and now here I was, willing to talk shit out. I mean, by no means was I willing to talk things out and get back to what we were, but I was more than happy to talk it out and allow us to be friends again. I hated the animosity that us bickering created. Jack didn’t deserve to sit through it all, not after all the shit I put him through. Alex and I had both fucked up here, and we both needed to grow up and fix it.
He reappeared in a little over a minute, wearing a creased t-shirt that looked like it had been balled up in the corner of his bag for the last few days and I had to stop myself from being disappointed. Alex and I weren’t in a relationship, no fuck buddies, no friendship even right now, so it was irrelevant. I should have been thankful.
“So, uh, what’s up?” He asked, sliding himself into the seat opposite me. He was staring at me intently, trying to seem confident and carefree about this conversation, but I could see that his eyebrows were just slightly closer together than normal and his hands were laced with each other to stop him from fidgeting. He was nervous.
“I think,” I sighed, “we should talk things out. It’s been a long time since we broke up and there is literally no reason why we should still be angry at each other. It makes shit awkward for Jack, and me, and even for John. He doesn’t need to be in the middle of petty ancient drama.” I watched as small white marks appeared in the back of his hands under the pressure of his fingers as he tensed at John’s name. I resisted from rolling my eyes, knowing he didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to being angry about John.
“Okay,” he nodded, the whitening around his fingertips lessening as he nodded slowly. “Then I guess I’ll go first. I suppose, looking back, that I never really said ‘I’m sorry’ for what I did. We both know I am, but really, not saying what we felt and just assuming was what got us here in the first place, so, you know, I am sorry. Truly.” I nodded, grateful that he had finally realised that’s the one thing he had never said to me about all of this. He’d pleaded and whined, but he’d never apologised until now. Even he knew that the haphazard ‘I’m sorry’ he’d thrown out last night when apologising for the album didn’t count as an apology.
“And I’m sorry for just up and leaving. I’d been accepted at ASU and it just seemed like the time to just up and go before I had to admit you’d hurt me. It was uncalled for and I shouldn’t have cut you all out like that.” He smiled lightly at me, thanking me for the apology that a month ago I didn’t think I’d needed to give. I’d still been bitter, but I was starting to heal. Finally.
“So, what brought this on?” He asked after a moment of silence, while I was still trying to think of what else we needed to put on the table. I wanted to discuss Jodie and that night, but the thought of it alone made the ache come clawing back into my chest.
“I listened to the album,” I shrugged. “I didn’t want to melt down again tonight when you threw another curveball at me, so I figured I’d listen to it. You’re right, I did want to curse you out for some of the songs. But I got it, and it made me realise we needed to lay all our cards on the table and just move on.”
“I’m sorry about that, too.”
“I know, you said. And you don’t need to be,” I told him, shaking my head. I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to think of how to broach the subject of those last couple of nights. I had less to apologise for than he did, but I definitely needed to apologise for Chase. That was beyond a dick move. “I, uh, I think I should apologise about that night. About Chase.” His hands clenched again and it told me that I most certainly did need to apologise about Chase. “I was angry. You’ve seen how spiteful I can get when I’m angry and he was the person I knew would piss you off the most without making myself want to vomit.” I cringed slightly, thinking about how I’d had half a thought about asking Mike to pick me up. Even I knew that had been a bad idea. It was as bad for me as it would have been for him. The slight darkening of his eyes showed me Alex knew who my other option had been and that he would have worked just as well as Chase had, if I’d run out of all my self-respect. “I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea. I think, I- well, I think I wanted to show you that I could still play the game as well as you could. You’d chosen the worst person you possibly could, so I tried to do the same. If it helps, I don’t think I could have gone through with it, even if you hadn’t shown up.”
“I didn’t choose her, Holly.” I looked over at him, watching him as he did the same to me. He could see that I was paying attention and I could see that he meant what he was saying. “I don’t even remember what happened. I remember seeing her, her talking to me about you and I remember walking away from her.” He frowned momentarily, seemingly concentrating on trying to remember what he’d done that night. “After that, I don’t remember anything until I woke up the next morning and she was there.”
I wanted to leave. I wanted to stand up, walk out, run away. Anything so I didn’t have to hear about her. This is what I’d come here looking for and I still had to force myself to stay. It hurt. It still hurt. Shouldn’t I have dealt with at least a little of this by now? Shouldn’t I just be angry?
“I was scared,” he continued. “I went out that night and I was already scared. Scared of what I felt for you. Scared because Jack had convinced me I needed to try and tell you I loved you again. Yes, I remembered that night in Vegas. I was drunk, but telling you that I loved you was something I could never forget. I didn’t want to say it to you sober when I knew that meant I couldn’t take it back, because then you might leave me.” He sighed, finally releasing his hands and rubbing his temples. “I got stupidly drunk and wandered away from the guys. That’s when I saw her. I was trying to drink away my insecurities and I managed to make all my fears come true.”
“And you think I wasn’t scared, Alex?” I asked, doing my best not to show him how much pain he made me feel just talking about what he’d done. “I was terrified that I would tell you that I loved you and that you would leave. I figured everything you said in Vegas had been the drink talking and you were embarrassed that you’d lied to me so blatantly. I knew I shouldn’t have lied to you for so long, but I’d been terrified for months about telling you how I felt and I didn’t do what you did.”
“It wasn’t a deliberate choice. I don’t remember doing it, I just remember waking up with her. It’s blurry and it always has been.”
“But you came straight from her to me. You didn’t even think twice about being the boy you knew I loved, putting on the charm and making me feel safe enough to almost tell you I loved you.”
“How could I be anything but with you? I tried a couple times when we first met to just act like I normally did around you, but I’d go to say something that would brush you off and all that would come out was everything you wanted to hear. That didn’t get easier as time went on, it got worse. I couldn’t stay mad at you, I couldn’t purposefully upset you, I couldn’t be cool and calm around you, I had to give you everything you wanted and more.” His eyes glistened and I knew I wasn’t the only one who was still hurting. I wanted to reach out and hold his hand and tell him everything would be okay. But that would only make it worse. I didn’t want to confuse things.
“I missed you, you know?” I said, finally. “Not in the we-need-to-be-together way, but in the way that had me telling you all my secrets on a Sunday morning over coffee. Some days I even wanted to call you to bitch about how much I hated you, like we used to bitch about everything else.”
“I know what you mean. I’d see the most pointless shit in the world and I’d just want to tell you, show you. When the EP got released, you were the first person I wanted to listen to it. And the album. Not even because it told you what I was feeling, just because I was proud of something and I knew you’d be happy for me.” I smiled softly, thankful we agreed on something. I felt like we were friends. I felt like, for the first time ever, I’d be able to be friends with this man in front of me.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Jack asked, blocking the doorway to the bus as he stopped abruptly. I could hear the others behind him, wanting to know what was going on, but he was just staring at Alex and I.
“Nope,” I smiled more brightly, directing it at Jack. He looked relieved, but didn’t move, as if waiting for an explanation.
“Jasey just thought it was a good time for us to talk shit out,” Alex offered, also seeing that Jack was waiting for us to carry on.
“No more drama. Promise.”

Notes

I couldn't resist updating, since Valentine's fell on such a nice chapter.
I mean, who doesn't love it when the drama stops?
I mean, aside from me, who lives off the stuff.
Happy Valentine's Day, guys! <3