"Bug, wait!" Still pulling on her coat, Lux calls out to her boyfriend, the cold, dark figure who is now hurrying away from her down the sidewalk.
"Bug! Come back!" she tries again.
"You lied to my face." he shoots at her. The words, filled with anger, erupt from the hooded guy, now just inches in front of Lux.
"It's not like that," she tries to explain to him. The closer Lux gets to Bug, the more she wants to look him in the face, to make him understand that he has no reason to be angry. If she could just see his face, she could make him understand everything. But he doesn't understand. "Then what's it like?" Bug snaps at her, "Before I left you and Abercrombie were riding around on my motorcycle together and now you're talking about having sex with him?" Finally catching up to Bug, Lux puts herself next to Bug, trying to make eye contact with him without any luch.
"I'm not having sex with him," Lux explains, "We're just going to the Winter Formal together. It's no big deal, okay?"
"So what? You're dating the quarterback now?" Bug mocks darkly, "Trying to be what? The prom queen?" The words hit Lux, stinging, but not for more than a second. She's learned to bounce back from this sort of thing. "I'm not trying to be anything. Except...Except for maybe normal." As the words squeeze past her lips, Lux finds herself back to the all-too familiar state of feeling smaller and smaller every second. "Maybe I just wanted to have a normal life for once," Lux admits to herself more than Bug. Don't be small, she tells herself, don't be ashamed.
"So you asked me to come back so you could rub your normal life in my face? Is that it?" Bug's angry, harsh words hit Lux but, again, don't stick as the sweet blonde girl finds some dignity.
"I didn't do anything wrong, Bug!" As the words find their way past Lux's lips, she finds that her feet have stopped moving. She's not chasing him anymore. It doesn't take long before her words bring Bug to a stop too and he turns to look at her. Lux knows it's time to say everything, everything she's been wanting to say, needing to say for weeks. "You weren't around, you bailed. I didn't even know if you were coming back." The words flow and Lux uses all of her strength to keep the newly attained eye contact. If Bug can't see what she's been feeling, all of this means nothing. But Lux can tell that now, he gets it. "It felt like Hell when you left," With these words, Lux knows that she can't let the tears break free in front of him. Not this time. "And now," she continues, "Here you are and somehow you make me feel even worse."
Lux knows Bug hears her, and she can almost see his facade of toughness beginning to fail, but she knows she has more to say. "I thought you said you wanted to change." Bam. For a moment, just a moment, his guard is down. The first time since he was five. Keep going, Lux reminds herself, don't stop now. "It doesn't feel that much different to me."
Without another word, another sound from either of them, Lux turns around and walks off, headed back to her dads' loft. All she wants is for Bug to come back for her, follow after her, say SOMETHING to her. But, he doesn't. Lux doesn't even have to look to feel him turn the opposite way and leave.
"I tried," Lux whispers to herself.