HATE FALL LOVE

Chapter 17

[BRIANNA's POV]

The rest of the week has been a difficulty, leaving me to adjust at the absence of James after what happened the last time we talked. After that night, I'd never seen him on breakfast the next morning, neither did on my ride to school. I drove Belle by myself to school for the first time since she had been fixed, feeling suddenly a bit incomplete. Something was missing... Or rather, someone.

James still didn't show up the next following days leading me to finally get that he doesn't want to see me anymore after what happened. I understand if he felt that way... But something inside me falls apart thinking that I'm not going to see him again.

I look out of the window of the bedroom. The sun is on it's way to set down. Orange hazes surround the whole sky with swirls of purple and yellow. It is a breathtaking view but I feel like wallowing in sadness. The truth is, I feel somehow, guilty and confused. Telling those cruel words to James was so hard it had eaten me inside. I recall the look on his face and it made me crumble back to tears. He looked so torn, broken, destroyed... The hope in his eyes vanished and that picture stayed permanently captured inside my head.

Crazy denial really kills on one shot.

I was stuck in this spiral of feelings that imprisoned me from being free to feel the things I wanted to feel. No matter how much I get through the most of my present moments, I still have that eye on the back of my head, bringing me back to those days with Peter. And it is torture.

To be wanting to love and be loved, costs a price... A very expensive one. And now, I'm paying it. Maybe, at some point, the guilt that I've felt after Miranda said those words to me that day at the comfort room, diminished yet what I did to James just doubled it after. It made me more brittle and vulnerable.

I sat on my bed, mulling over what happened lately and sulk alone. Dad is out for duty hours at the hospital and so is mom--she's busy doing work at the town's bank. Dad was pretty much silent and just observant with the sudden disappearance of James. He still hasn't asked me about it yet. Though, I have to admit, I feel kind of relieved somehow that I don't have to try to explain everything... I just feel like facing these problems on my own for now...

"A piece of my heart, that belongs to you,

A piece of a string, lost from one shoe,

We tied it together, like a puzzle with no clue,

Our hands touch one moment, and it all came true."

I remembered those words from James' notebook. The four lines that he wrote on the last stanza of that poem he made for me that day. He'd left a hole in my chest when he left, now there's no one who could possibly fill it back again.

He loves writing, that's what he told me on one of those nights we just stared up on my ceiling, just lying on our backs, talking. He used to brush his fingers through my hair, his touch tingles sparks down my body. I lied down, and tried to reminisce that feeling, that feeling I'm missing so badly. I skim my hand through the surface of my bed, picturing him when he used to lie beside me there. His warmth, the smell of his cologne, but all I feel was nothing. I smell nothing but fabric and detergent. The loss became much more painful. Unbearable.

I sat up, rubbing the marks of tears from my eyes. I have been an i***t. I must be an i***t for doing that to him, for thinking I had no right to love someone else aside from Peter. Peter had been the love of my life, once upon a time... But now, I need to turn the pages to the next chapter of my story...

The one where James is the leading man.

"Honey, you fine?" Dad looks at me from where he sat on the couch by the living room

"Honey, you fine?" Dad looks at me from where he sat on the couch by the living room. I had just got down the stairs, deciding to have a glass of water because I have been staying in my room for too long this weekend. Dad gives me a worried look and I gave him a small smile.

"I'm okay, dad," I tell him, "I'll be fine." I will try.

I went to the kitchen, wearing my lazy pajamas and opened the fridge. As soon as the water meets my throat, I sigh in relief. It felt like I've ran a marathon. It feels like I've been running for so long I don't know where I even had begun from the start.

I hear the front door opens and shuts as I put the pitch of cold water back to the fridge. Footsteps appeared by the kitchen doorway and I turn around only to be surprised to see James standing there.

The eyes that I've missed, the face I've longed to see again, the presence I've been blindly looking for... He is here.

I remained frozen from where I stood.

"I know you still aren't ready for anything," James speaks up, his eyes gazing deeply into mine. And I shivered.

"James..."

"I still love you." My heart skipped a beat after hearing him say that again. I do, I love you too.

"And I'm willing to wait," James moves forward, taking determined steps towards me. "No matter how many times you say you can't love me back, I'll wait."

He is now standing in front of me, too close that I got to crane my neck up just to look back at him.

"Your dad might even hear me say these things now," James tells me.

"I do hear you," Dad calls out from the living room, making me chuckle.

"Yeah, he does," James grins down at me, his dimples showing. Those dimples that I've missed. "I'll wait for you, Shane."

My smile fades as I stare at him, captivated. "You will?"

"I don't care if you love Peter more than me... I don't care really. I just love you. I'll stay here with you. I won't go anywhere."

I feel speechless. He's giving me a straight confession and I don't know what to say.

"I'll stay here." he tells me and leans down right away.

The kiss. The kiss I've always thought about of getting again. And here it comes. The new chapter begins.

---------------

It felt like a fairy tale last week. Things with James continued to go on smoothly. We both begun to talk more about things we want to know about each other. He shared things I still haven't known about him. Some were quite funny, others were weird. And I also did the same. We were getting steady and so far, it's been great.

Yet, somehow, our conversations felt like I've already known all of it. The things James used to say and all those mannerisms he had, like the way he pouts when he shrugs or the way he licks his lips when he's trying to say something he has in mind. They all felt like I've seen them before. But I didn't mind it too much. I was too happy to even care about it.

Just the mere presence of James has been more than enough for me to move on from my past. I love talking to him, I love holding his hand... Hearing him laugh and knowing he's near--that's all the reasons that make me smile every day. And I don't care what else is there that he had from his own past or the other things he still hides inside of him that he's not saying to me. I'm already prepared to accept all of that, while I look through those beautiful brown eyes. I know. I'm willing to take it all. Everything. Because that's how love works.

Apparently, though, Beth and Evan had looked strange these past few days too. I watch them grow much weirder and weirder as time goes by that I begun to wonder what was really going on between them.

"You should have called me last night," Evan grumbles back on his chair as he munches his way through his burger. We are in the cafeteria and it's Wednesday. I have classes with Beth after lunch. I sat watching the two of them, after I had gone to wash my hands at the comfort room. Evan was talking to Beth about something I didn't quite catch at first.

"I don't need to tell you everything, Evie," Beth says blankly, still busy with reading another book she's craving. Her face was hidden beneath the pages in front of her. "You need to move past from being so childish."

"I'm just concerned!" Evan exclaims, his eyes blazing. "You know I always am!"

"Okay. Wait," I butt in, "What's happening here? Are you two fighting for real?"

This wasn't really the usual bickering they used to have. Evan is puffing out breaths through his nose, scowling. And, Beth, on the other hand, is acting strangely indifferent. She ignores him and I frowned.

"Evan?" I turn to Evan, who is now slouching down his seat. He was still staring at Beth. "What is this?"

"I can't talk, Shai," he says, suddenly standing up, gathering his things, "Go deal with your best friend. I'm out of here."

I frown harder as I watch him walk away, still glaring. I turn to Beth who has been silent all along. I really don't understand what is happening to the both of them now.

"Spill it," I tell Beth, grabbing the book in front of her face and dropped it down on the table.

"Ugh. Fine," Beth sighs, rolling her eyes. "It's really nothing. Evan's just being stubborn again. As always."

"That's it? That's all this is about?" I say, not believing it at all.

"You know him. He just hates it when things don't go the way he wants it to."

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind that," Beth waves it off, "Let's just go to class. Come on," she tells me as she stands up.

"Shai?" Beth calls to me again when I still didn't stand up from my seat. "We don't want to be late for History. Come on."

I grumbled a "yeah" and stood. We don't really want to be late for Mr. Franklin's class. But I still didn't feel contented not knowing what's going on with my two best friends. Something is really happening between them and I still don't know what it is... But I'm going to figure it out soon.

"You had that look on your face again," James tells me when I met him after class at the truck

"You had that look on your face again," James tells me when I met him after class at the truck. "What's wrong? Something happened?"

"It's not really about me," I reply to him, getting inside the truck. "It's about Eve and Beth."

"Evan? Why? What's wrong?" he asks me as he starts the car.

"I don't really know," I tell him, "They had this fight at lunch today, and it wasn't the usual kind they always have in the past. Evan was really frustrated. He ditched us after class without even a word. And Beth tries to drop the subject when I asked her. But in History, she got this really strange sad look on her face. It feels serious. I don't know... I just..."

"You're worried," James ends my sentence as he looks at me with that smile on his face. I smiled back.

"Yes," I tell him, only to frown again as I think about my two best friends.

Maybe I had been so busy with my personal matters that I had forgotten that they too, they needed me. I had been so consumed by my own misery, I didn't even consider that Beth and Evan too, were also having their own issues.

I look out to the window on my side and sighed. I feel like I have been a bad kind of friend for them. For the past two years, I've been succumbed by my own wallowing, I let my friends down when it should have been us altogether facing the days.

"I feel like I've let them down," I say out loud, stealing James' attention. He looks at me and gives me a smile from the driver's seat.

"You didn't," he tells me, "Shai, you've been a good friend for them. They would never stay on your side if you weren't."

I nod at him, sharing a tight smile and looks away. "But I wasn't there for them. When we lost Peter, after his funeral, I isolated myself from everyone. Even from them... I've let them down."

"Don't be too hard on yourself," James reaches for my hand across the console. "You are a great person, Shai. You wouldn't be the girl I love right now if you weren't that awesome. And you're even way too awesome for my liking."

I chuckled at his words, he really does know how to handle me and my insecurities. He is the perfect boyfriend.

"Oh. You're not so bad yourself, too," I say, making him laugh as he kisses my hand.

"You really are super awesome," he tells me, and we both smiled as we drove around the neighborhood.