Surprisingly you thought that movie that Casey had cried for was lame too. I don't know why I expected you to react any differently. Though to be fair I'm pretty sure you only did that because I spent most of the movie vividly describing the faces the actors were making.
You had laughed the hardest at my 'he sings like a constipated drunkard.' you had almost fallen off the couch when I had slipped in the 'he looks like one' too comment.
"Good lord she's wearing the weirdest shoes I've ever seen. Like they look like frogs." I had gasped aloud, "Ayla! She's wearing frog shoes!"
You were wheezing beside me, "We need to get those shoes for me man. I would absolutely slay those."
"Stop-" you managed to wheeze out between your fits of laughter. Your laughter had gotten me high as well. I laughed along with you. For no reason at all.
You were rubbing off on me, I had thought. We were getting too close.
I should stop this.
I really should stop whatever this was.
A little longer. Just a little longer.
I couldn't help but beam down at you as you had found my arm and had begun smacking me lightly. "Frog shoes! To the beach house! And the banana hat!"
"Dont even get me started on the banana hat." I had said very seriously. I had paused the movie for a bit to let you get your bearings.
"I cant ever watch a movie with you again." you said after you had calmed down.
I can't even explain to you the way my heart had dropped. The pit of my stomach brewing thoughts of how you had figured me out, you had heard something.
The train had finally stopped at the thought that you had met Mrs. Penny in the park that day.
I hadn't run fast enough and she had caught you with me.
My past had caught up with me.
It had found you.
"Youre so distracting, and so funny. But I'm pretty sure you butchered this movie for me." you had poked an accusing finger in the air.
"You don't like that?"
You paused for a moment, letting your hand drop. You had leaned back, letting your head rest on the back cushions of your couch.
"I'm having too much fun. It's scaring me."
The train that had been furiously running around in circles to find reasons she could hate me still at once. All its loud, clouding noise had disappeared with the stillness.
"Before I had met you I barely laughed this much, you know? I was always with Aster, or my sister. And my sister isn't much of a talker." You had closed your eyes and sighed.
A deep sigh.
Like you felt weight slip off your shoulders. Those pale delicate shoulders.
Just how much were they carrying around.
"It's scaring me now," you had said, voice thick with emotion. "I don't know if I'm allowed this."
I wanted to set myself on fire. I couldn't believe I had done this to you. I should have stopped lying to you then. Confessed all my sins and grovelled at your feet for forgiveness.
I should have immediately told you every mistake I had made in my life.
I should have told you how I had failed the boys. How I had failed him.
I should have told you what I was truly afraid of. How I had been walking into this world you were showing me, how selfish it had made me.
How delusional.
How I couldn't stop dreaming of a tomorrow with you, where I would hear you laugh all the same. A tomorrow where you still thought I was the coolest and that was more than enough.
"I don't know either. If I'm allowed this." I had slipped my pinky finger under yours, hooking the two together. Your head lifted from the couch at the action and you seemed all attentive once again.
"I guess we'll have to find out. We'll have to see what comes." I was trying my best to hold back the emotions trying to spill out of my dry eyes. I had stolen every word I had said to you that night.
I meant every word of it.
I wasn't sure I could comfort you with something I said from my heart though.
My heart, you see my angel, is terribly broken and a horrid mess.
It would scare you far more than the uncertainty of the future ever could.
"And to find out we need to keep moving. Keep laughing this hard, everyday after today." I had squeezed your pinky in mine, "and if life is mean to you in the end, all you need to do is tell me. I'll crawl under its bed and scare the daylights out of it."
You had snorted before you broke into another fit of laughter, "So eternal night? That's what you'd do if life ever messed with me again?"
"Yeah, the moon is way prettier anyway."
You flashed a shy, soft smile at me, like you had the day we first met. My breath caught in all the crevices of my lungs, my brain refused to form coherent thoughts and my heart just wouldn't stop running, like it had the first time I had seen that smile of yours.
"I think you're too nice to me."
"Nah," I had reluctantly unhooked my finger from yours and started the movie again, "You're the angel among the both of us, remember?"
You had chuckled, called me a smartass and taken your focus back to the movie.
While I had sat beside you, drowning in that murky dark guilt that seemed to come up to my nose now. Surrounding everything around me.
You didn't know. Of course you didn't know, there was no way you could have.
That everything I had told you, to comfort you that night were words I had stolen.
Words that I had no right to steal.
He had told me just that when I had cried just the same as you did. He had wiped my tears and hugged me close and promised me we would kick life's ass together if it ever took a turn for the worse.
We attended his funeral two weeks later.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.