note: dedicated to sineadstarlingrox. you are so lovely for waiting up for this fic; you truly are.
She remembered the first time she saw him - he looked like a stupid, clueless, stereotypical jock, a boy trying so hard to be a man, a boy who knows his world so well that he lost himself in it.
Because that's who he is. He never really grabbed a hold of the real world because he never wanted to let go of his own. He always felt that once he lets go of his own, he'll fall apart.
She didn't lose herself in technology the way her brothers did - she lost herself trying to gain respect from her fellow Ekats by doing something for them in this world. She made the real world hers.
But just like him, she knew the world so well that she lost herself in it.
They were both so in love with the ideas of worlds that the sense of ideology soon came as natural as breathing.
"You are only in love with an idea of me, Hamilton! I can't be your queen in your world and you can't be my king like this!" she yelled. She took a few deep breaths and said quietly, "I can't... I can't change for all of this. I can't change for you."
"You're always saying that you can't do things, Sinead! You can't do this, you can't do that. Help yourself, Sinead, help us!" Hamilton yelled. She shook her head and turned her head away as she tried to hide the tears.
She quietly said, "We're too stuck in our own worlds to do this. Hamilton, we're too stuck with ideas of these worlds, with ideas in general, that this relationship became an idea. We oove the ideas of each other more than our actual selves, and that's the sad part. I am more in love with my idea of you than you, Hamilton. Look at me and tell me that this is true for you, too."
Hamilton did look at her and sighed in defeat. She was right. He sat down as he took his time to process everything.
"I'm sorry. I'm such a jerk, Sinead... I - I can try to make this work. I can - I can change myself..." he said. He hung his head, knowing that change would be wishful thinking; he locked his world too tight that it made it extremely diffucult for him to accept anyone else.
She gave him a sad smile. "It won't work out. We won't work out. I'm sorry, Ham, I really am."
Ham. She hasn't called him that since his twenty-third birthday last year.
"Will you give me one last night?" Hamilton asked. It was barely a whisper - had they not been in the same room alone, she wouldn't hear it.
"Okay," she says. "Okay."
They stayed beside each other that night. He shut his eyes and didn't say a word. She simply stared at the wall,mwith her back facing him. They didn't kiss, they didn't do anything - they just had each other and let the silence take over.
She didn't sleep. She didn't take her eyes off the clock beside his bed as she was counting the minutes before midnight.
11:45; She sat up and looked at him and her surroundings. She walked quietly around the room and ran her fingers over pictures of them.
She thought, this is what I could've had.
11:50; She put her shoes on, grabbed a pen and a Post-it. She wrote, I'm sorry.
11:55; She stuck the Post-it on his sidetable, grabbed her bag and exited his room.
12:00; She started the car and gave herself a quiet drive home.
He heard every footstep, every breath, every stroke of the pen. He resisted the tears as much as he could.
12:05; He opened his eyes and, for the first time in a long time, he cried.
disclaimer: the last part was inspired by the way david levithan wrote the finale of his book, every day. this style is not my own - it is merely an inspired version.