Holy ish it has been a while. I guess I should maybe come back from my cave. .-.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything…related to this story or not…seriously. I'm poor. And first, probably only, fic for this couple/show, so. Don't be hatin.
He couldn't believe it. The vacant expression his face held mirrored her eyes the last time they made love, a final attempt to save their failing relationship. Highly decorated walls seemed to come to life, crushing him into the loveseat that was cold and unfamiliar without his girlfriend next to him and chattering away, her carefree attitude sailing over the dulled television to tell him about her day.
The couch groaned in protest as the man finally stood—the clock ticking away more seconds which marked her departure from their apartment a little over two days ago. Wheel marks from a small suitcase the woman packed in a watery escape had faded from the bright white carpet; it made him wish he had stopped her, not watched her leave, anything that would prevent him from remember them, the tracks, that made it real.
His world had left him, and he couldn't believe it was over.
He and his beauty had had their fair share of rough times but always made up, always came back, always said they were sorry for their foolishness: but not this time. Logan rationalized that it was stupid to never think Tuesdays would be the same again, but to him it felt like every week that day would be marred by her memory in some way.
Blue, orange, purple, and white flowers caught his attention, the arrangement neatly displayed in a crystal vase on the wooden entrance table right next to his car keys and—
A pale hand groped at a metal 'C' initial keychain that held a single key, the key to their apartment. Not only the key to their home, but to their love, their commitment to always come back to each other, no matter what. In a flourish of anger he hurled the metal objects into the lifeless kitchen and watched as it slid under the refrigerator that held painful memories by way of small magnets. With a heavy sigh he slumped to the ground, clutching his head in the hands she loved so much to hold.
Admitting defeat, BTR's 'smart guy' allowed memories to flood his mind, the dark entrance way and silent atmosphere the perfect place for his tears to drop—away from all the effects their life together assembled in three rooms.
[Flashback]
The wooden owl clock displayed the ungodly numbers 4,2,3, not necessarily in that order, as the lock clicked open to the small flat and I watch as Camille ambles in, her delicate hands fumbling with her keys she couldn't quite pull from the tumblers. I chuckle to myself as she starts tugging and cursing the objects, finally freeing and disdainfully throwing them to the aged lumber we agreed to call an entrance table.
"I never thought you would have trouble unlocking a door, Cam."
"Please, Logan, not now."
My try at lighthearted conversation dropped at her tired and empty voice, hurt rushing to my features immediately as I realize it was another night where we would not talk much.
My relationship with Camille had been steadily declining during Big Time Rush's last tour. When I arrived home last month, matters did not get better like the guys had told me, promised me, they would; they all said it was the distance plus her new role in a psycho/drama that were bringing us down, but communication via phone calls and texts would be enough to keep it stable until we could finally sit down and talk together again. They were wrong.
From the second our plane landed back in LA to the day my father died the sinking feeling our connection held seemed to disappear and was strong, the smiles and tender nights attesting to the thought. The day I found out my father died, not even eight days after the tour ended, revealed a side of me I was ashamed to own—but the way she stood by me as I lashed out in anger at everything and one around me, the things I said in that dark moment in time hurt her, I know, but she never left my side. Never mentioned the emotional weight that started to bring her down to dance with her growing mental delusions.
I learned more about her part in a new movie after my father's funeral and I was not happy she was portraying this girl. Her character was a patient in a mental facility, placed there after a series of experiments had gone awry; the government accidently scrambled something in her brain that made her believe everything she'd ever known was a made-up story. The female developed into a psychosis state—that's where I stopped listening yet watched as her face lit up at the complexity of the character.
She promised me she could handle it, and I believed her. Weeks after she started to change, not into her role but she was guarded, depressed, always thinking or contemplating, trying to figure out how her character could survive like that. I thought Heath Ledger was lying when he told people his role as 'The Joker' changed him, but now that my girlfriend was in a similar position it was becoming a difficult idea to reject.
I caught her talking in her sleep several times, her words spiking tears in my eyes as I listened to her battle her sleeping conscious about me loving her, her friends accepting her, the world being a hateful place, and her admitting it was all a lie. That night I didn't sleep again, instead my mind wondered all the possibilities as to what was a lie only to find out it all was.
She completely shut me out the next day. She would kiss me, say she loved me, we would make love and cuddle, but it was not the same for her. Her dark eyes weren't as bright as they were and I noticed they weren't looking at me when she looked at me. I never gave up on her though.
I nod as I hear her cross the soft carpet and kiss her head when she sits down on the worn blue couch we salvaged from a garage sale when we were nineteen. Silence consumes the room once more, my thoughts never straying from the brunette curled to my side as the early morning minutes tick by, watching us, waiting for one to make a move or voice a concern.
My mind snaps to attention when my partner sharply inhales and I wait for her to speak, my short nails digging into the gray pajama pants; her words never come. However, the actress takes my hand in hers and I'm lead across the soft floor to our back bedroom. Her grip on my fingers sends an unsettling chill up and down my spine, her sweaty palms telling me that this was her trying to make it up to me.
I'm met with small rays of filtered sunshine and harsh reality as my doze brakes, my first thoughts are of Camille not being in my arms while closely followed by the sound of soft crying. Rolling over I saw her, laying in a patch of bright sunlight that danced on her pale skin as her body trembled on the floor; her eyes glide up to mine, then gaze right through me when I call out to her—just as they had hours earlier when she was under me.
Her brown orbs failed to recognize me as she started to talk.
"I wish I didn't love you anymore."
I feel the sharp sting as an imaginary hand slaps my cheek, leaving an invisible mar on my now awake face. I stop breathing but my mind won't stop yelling at me, at Camille, at our life, at so many things I have to understand why.
"How can you say that?"
"How can I not?" She says, her emotional voice continues, "Look at me, Logan, I'm not me anymore. I finally figured out my life is a lie and I've waited for you to disappear, but you haven't! Getting this role has opened my eyes to what reality is and where it stops and it hit me that you're my dream, you're my favourite lie and you're indulging me just to use me as your personal joke."
My legs swing over the mattress and I crawl to her small form, stopping short of her when I hear all she says.
"Cam, baby, you're not making sense. This isn't a lie, I'm not a-"
"I can't! I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, Logan. There are so many thoughts and doubts and lies built into everything I've ever known! I've finally cracked but I can't accept it because you're still here, you're still mine and I'm still obsessed with you. So much that I've lost control trying to keep it together for you and I tried everything, I gave you all I had but it hasn't made anything better."
My eyes start to water and I reach for her hand. "Hey hey, ssh, Cami, ssh, you're fine, you're a little lost but we can get you through that and back to being your old self. I'm not a lie, I'm right here, I always will be-"
"I've got to go-"
A choked sob, I can't tell if it's from her or me but I don't doubt it is mine. Sitting there in front of her on the floor, my heart breaking, neither of our words making sense, I'm hit with the horrible realization that I've been perpetuating my girlfriend's mental breakdown by not noticing she needs professional help.
"I'm obsessed with you-"
Her hand tugs itself from my grasp and she springs to her feet; I'm on mine a moment later. She's to this crack-up because I didn't want her to leave; I kept lying to both of us when I made myself believe she was ok and by ignoring her loss of herself to try to hold on to us. For my sake.
"Please, let me go-"
My hand latches to her wrist as her body moves to the closet, my fear of her leaving bringing on a panic attack. My chest starts to tighten as I grasp the reality of her words—she was leaving, ending our relationship.
"I know you gave it everything and it will get better-"
"Let me go-"
"No, you need to stay-"
"I CAN'T!"
Her voice exploded to loud that I release her hand as if an electric wire zapped me. My ears ring in the newfound silence, our eyes meeting and I see that she's finally looking at me.
"But you can, Cami. You can't leave."
Tears escape my eyes as they fill hers, and I unexpectedly see her inner turmoil as the fight manifests in the windows to her soul. By the look on her face I can tell she's breaking inside, that she's lost and in a place where it hurts to pretend.
"I can't, Logan. Can't you see I'm sick?" My cheeks mirror hers as tears swamp them because crying is the only thing that makes sense right now. "I have to leave, I gotta get better because I am sick. I can't be me again until I'm fixed and that won't happen here. We can't be together anymore because my life needs to be all about me now, not you, not Logan, not the way it always is; it won't work, Logan, we won't work. I tried, so hard, to be me for you but I can't do it anymore."
I watch through a veil of tears as she starts to throw clothes into a suitcase and I'm barely aware of my voice uttering 'please' over and over again. God knows I don't deserve her and I feel like the worst person in the world for wanting her to stay, to keep playing pretend, because that means I would still have her.
I need Camille. She's been my rock since we were friends in the Palm Woods—so much has happened since then. She's always been with me, a part of me, by my side through everything and I know that if there was ever a day when I wake up without her beside me, I'd be lost. What would I do without her? That was the one question I never wanted to think about yet I can't stop now that it's happening, right in front of me. That's why I'm begging, because I never want to know.
I follow her movements to the stoic front door, my cries the only thing to fill the nothingness of air as she shakily breathes it in, then out.
"Please, Cam, Cami, please, you're my everything, don't go. Please, don't leave me."
My eyes trail her head as it quickly shakes and I drag myself to the cold couch as her last words repeat themselves throughout the apartment, filling every cavity of the brightly decorated space:
"I'll call you when I'm better, I promise."
Logan strutted down the overcrowded Hollywood street with his three best friends, occasionally waving to friends and the awe struck tourist as they journeyed to the nearest bar and grill for a celebration.
The restaurant was packed inside with regular people—a group of guys chugged beer, yelling at the football game in the small television in one corner while a pack of girls gossiped about them from their sturdy wooden table near the old polished lumber that made up the bar. The four guys grabbed a booth and ordered a round before taking off their jackets to tend to the business at hand.
"Here's to Logan, the man of the day!" James cried out confidently, sloshing his glass mug with three identical ones. "Happy 23rd, buddy!"
Choruses followed from everywhere around them as strangers jumped at the chance to raise their own drinks to a happy event. Logan's smile was huge after he downed half his beer in encouragement; his friends' faces mirrored his as laughter started up.
A little over a year had passed since Camille admitted defeat to her illness and left Logan alone in their apartment. After a solid month of mourning her absence the singer threw himself into his musical career and vowed to not think again of the woman who left him begging until she made well on her promise. The start of it was hard, but as he was surrounded by people at every turn it became easier than he ever thought it would, and today on his twenty-third birthday, the actress was the last thought in his head.
Lunch had just arrived as Logan's pants began to ring and he pulled it out with a confused expression when the eleven numbers on screen didn't pull up a contact from his phone book.
Carlos looked at him in expectation.
"Dude, let it go to voicemail. Food!"
"It's probably my mom from her hotel room. Two minutes, tops, promise."
James, Carlos, and Kendall rolled their eyes as they dug into their burgers and ribs with a starved vigor.
"Attractive, guys," Logan joked as he pressed the green answer button on his phone. "Yeah?"
"…Logan?"
The smile vanished from the birthday boy's face as the voice overcrowded his head with it's light question in an unsure, shaky tone. The glass he had raised to his lips during the moment of silence after he answered fell from his hand and fractured on the grungy ground below.
Logan couldn't see the worried looks of his friends' through his newly acquired tunnel vision and his breath caught in his restricted throat.
"Happy birthday."
Apologies for grammatical errors and the like, everyone knows I'm the kat and it's the water (ba dum chnn!) hah I crack myself up.
But you've already read, why not reply?
-katcubed