Note: So it's been a while since I've written anything but I got inspired one day when I had 'Black Keys' by the Jonas Brothers stuck in my head. This is what came of that, it's very loosely based on the song and I incorporated a few lyrics in this fic, see if you can spot them. Let me know what you think and enjoy!
She walks away with one last look at what she dreamed would be her future. He's crumpled up in the corner of the room, head down, shaking with every sob. He's wracked with guilt. She's numb, waiting for the pain to consume her. How did they get here? To this point with no way back.
She reaches the door; his scent hits her as she closes her eyes, a tear escaping. She blinks to clear her vision only to see everything has faded to grey, this is her life now: dull and hazy. She takes a deep breath and walks out the door for the last time.
Now in the safety of the car her eyes glaze over as a memory drifts into focus. She's laughing, running around like a maniac, trying to get away from HIM. She turns around to see where he's gone and as she turns back he's in front of her, a big grin on his face. Before she knows it he's picked her up with those strong arms and she's over his shoulder. He's marching towards the pool, she's screaming, and then they're splashing each other, play fighting. She hates him, she says, he knows she doesn't mean it and pulls her towards him kissing her to prove it.
She's suddenly finding it hard to breathe realising it's finally hit her: it's over, fifteen years of their lives together, ten of those that she thought was building up to something, all accumulated to nothing. To the emptiness she was now feeling, the hurt and most of all the deceit.
Her phone's ringing, she starts; it's HIM calling. She hangs up and turns it off; last thing she wants is to hear his voice. Wiping the tears off her face she turns the key and the car roars to life. It's comforting somehow, this she's used to. Her foot hits the gas and she's out on the road her head clearing from the breeze coming in through the open window. She's on autopilot now: clutch, gear, gas until she's out on the freeway, no need for breaking at this time of day.
Just as she thought her head was clear, emotions start rushing back as one of HIS band's songs begins to play on the radio. It's one of their early ones, a happy song about loving life and the one you're with; one before life started getting in the way. Where they were carefree and fun. Then the problems started leading to the personal questions by the media, a knock-on effect from new music about their life issues.
It got so complicated, his job, hers, it just didn't mix. She wished she'd just listened to her family, HIS or even the god damned press and fans. But no, she was so stubborn and he so determined to prove them all wrong. Where did that get them? Both were alone and unhappy mourning not just over a lost love, but a lost friend too. Idiots. Complete and utter idiots.
They should have just left it as it was, best friends ready to take on the world, nothing more. No expectation attached to the word friends. Sometimes things were better simple; they were happier when it was simple. No jealousies, no dishonesty, no temptation, just pure and simple friendship.
But they had to grow up didn't they, the hormones had to start pumping, they were both screwed the minute puberty hit. So naïve to think that nothing would change; so what if guys started noticing her, who cares if girls started noticing him, it wouldn't bother either of them, why should it right?
Wrong. And that was the start of one very confusing relationship, made more complicated by the fact that him and his brothers were starting to make it big in the music industry. But they loved each other so everything was going to be fine. 'Love conquers all' and that. Right. Love makes you feel all happy and tingly inside until one day the object of your affection is ripped away from you for months at a time! Yeah because that's what security feels like.
And if she thought it would get better once they reached 'adult relationship' status then she was fantasising. The first few years, they were great; the moving in together, the puppy, the promise ring….and eventual engagement ring, but now looking back, was it all just because they were so busy that they never had time to stop and just think. She didn't know and HE definitely wouldn't, he was always so much busier than her anyway, when did he have time to contemplate their life?
Not to say that they were never truly happy during their relationship, they knew each other inside out. She knew what to do to make him smile again after nasty rumours circulating in the press and he knew how to make her relax when she was stressed with work. They didn't even have to say anything, they got each other completely and that's what had made it so easy in the beginning. But as good things often do, it turned into a negative; fights of 'why didn't he want to talk to her?' and 'why was she so angry all the time?' beginning.
Until it all fell away, tangled into the mess that they were both trying to figure out now, a loose thread being pulled. A thread that was his NEW 'best friend', entangling herself into their lives without them even noticing until she found THEM on the couch, bottle of wine on the table laughing and joking at some crap on the tv. And until she started noticing the sleepovers getting more frequent, HER in just his t-shirt, she was upset and left in such a hurry she'd 'forgotten' to bring pyjamas, how convenient.
And the constant shopping trips, meeting for coffee, never being apart for more than an hour. A reminder of what they used to be like in the early stages. And of course, the night everything changed, when she realised that HE had actually slipped through her fingers for good and was no longer the man she knew. The man she loved, he wouldn't have done that to her, and especially not in THEIR bed.
Of course she didn't officially know any of this until today when HE had the guts to admit it after she screamed at him to finally spit the truth out. She was humiliated, how was it that everyone knew BUT her? Wasn't she the one who should have been told first? Instead she was the one standing there looking like a fool for trusting him because SHE was the one who had known him for fifteen years not them, SHE was his best friend, SHE was the one who saw him every day.
But again….she wasn't, it was HER who got to spend every day with him, HER who was his best friend now, HER who took a metaphorical hammer to the edges of her already fragile life and smashed it up.
And here she was, on the side of the road, with memories of the 'good times' and having to pick up the shattered pieces of her heart. She needed time, time away from everything and everyone she associated with HIM. That didn't mean she was cutting him out of her life, she still needed him, she just needed to find a way to forgive first.
Turning her phone back on and sending a text to him she got back in the car and drove away with the resolve that she wasn't going to lose him twice or his family….HER family too. She'd spent so much time with them they weren't like her family, they now were….and she wasn't going to let THIS change that. Maybe there wasn't a way back….but a way forward into a future she never saw coming. A future where all of this was behind them and they were friends again. Because let's be honest, they were always better as friends.