"And it was after months of silence that I realised we make better strangers than we ever did anything else."
It started with a breakdown of communication - a missed text, an angry voice mail, ignoring comments.
Now, sitting in the silence of her dark bedroom, not a word - angry or otherwise - crossing her lips to him, Jade tells herself that radio silence is better than broken promises.
Beck stares at Jade, watching her eyes flicker to him every now and again, but doing nothing to comfort her. He's so sick of being the one who has to make everything better.
Before...before this great silence had begun, he tried. He tried so damn hard to make it better for her. He asked her. He asked her what was wrong, what he could do, begged her please to see him, not see through him.
Believe me, she tried.
"I'm sad."
Sad.
What an understatement.
Sadness is a joke compared to what she felt in that moment...in the months leading up to that moment, even.
She was filled with sorrow, her unhappiness seeping to the surface with every woeful breath she drew, her heart breaking every time it beat, pumping a miserable blue around her body instead of a vibrant red.
But oh.
When she was happy.
When she was truly, truly, happy, it was amazing. It was as if a chorus of angels lifted her above the clouds, and all the rain cleared from the sky, her smile spread across her face, cheeks flushed with delight, her eyes warm, sparkling, untroubled.
But that's her, always blowing hot and cold.
And him?
He was almost jealous of the way her emotions filled her, the way anger, love, passion, hate, even...he was jealous of the way they consumed her.
If he was honest, he felt nothing. Staying strong, being there for whoever needed him - that was his existence. He needed to be as stony as a brick and as strong as a wall that those bricks built. No more pain coursed through his very being, no more happiness pumped through his heart as he ran, no passion made him do crazy things anymore - he was empty.
Beck no longer saw the beauty that once couldn't have passed him by. He no longer pointed out a rainbow, or a sparkling dew drop on a blade of grass. His old philosophy no longer applied.
"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."
He was beginning to see the thorns - and they all reminded him of Jade.
Meanwhile, Jade tore herself up because she was so sick and tired of him being so transparent to everybody else when she couldn't even see him at all.
Who was he?
She sure as hell didn't know.
Who was she?
He was still trying to figure it out.
Her once-warm blue eyes lost their mischievous sparkle, choosing to turn into a cold blizzard of ice with an evil glint.
His eyes were tired, hollow, blinking.
Slowly, slowly, they let go.
After three years, their connection was severed.
Who knows why?
Maybe it was because she was sad.
Maybe it was because he was empty.
Maybe it was because of a certain brunette, or maybe it was because of an attraction to self destruction.
Or maybe?
"It was after months of silence that I realised we make better strangers than we ever did anything else."
Maybe it was because they never knew each other after all.