Just a random oneshot that I thought up when I should have been thinking about my A&P exam. It took less than half an hour to write, so I do apologise if it's not really up to scratch. I really wanted to post something though, because I haven't posted anything in what feels like aeons.

Anyway, here goes....

It's you. Again. It's always you.

I can't answer my phone because it'll be you calling me. I can't open the door because you'll be standing outside. I can't look out my window because you'll be there, throwing pebbles, telling me that you love me. I can't go anywhere, do anything, because you're there. Ever mirror I look into I see you. Every corner I go round you're waiting on the other side. You haunt my every waking hour. I can't sleep because even then you'll be there – dancing through my dreams, a shadow of times that have long since come and gone. A whisper of before.

Back before everything became a fight.

Now even love is a fight.

You say you love me. You come to my house, you admire my mother's petunias, you talk cars with my father. You take my little brother to the park. They all love you. And they think that I should too.

So I agreed to go out with you again. Just once. Not because I liked you or anything. Just because I wanted you to stop bothering me. I wanted to get you out of my head, and I thought that maybe the only way to do that would be to let you back in. Just a little bit anyway.

I called you. I knew if I had of waited ten minutes you would have just called me anyway and I could have answered. I never answered though, so there was no need to break with tradition now that I actually did want to talk to you. I didn't really want to talk with you, but I thought that it would probably be the best thing to do right now.

I couldn't believe how excited you were when you answered the phone. I didn't say anything; just let you talk. And talk. And talk.

Finally I broke in and told you that I wanted to go out with you, just once. You were over the moon. You kept thanking me and apologizing for me having to ask. I reminded you that you had just asked me yesterday (by way of paper plane flown in through my window), so to just consider this as me saying yes to that request.

So you picked me up that night. You opened my door and I got into the car. You smiled and talked. You were charming and sensible. You were incredible really. Every one of my girl friends that I had talked to said they were jealous. They couldn't believe that I really didn't like the fact that you were constantly trying to show your affection for me.

In my opinion it was getting kind of stalkerish.

Anyway, so you took me out to dinner. You were polite and endearing. I let you hold my hand in the car on the way home and I let you kiss my cheek on the front doorstep.

But when the sound of the car had receded down the street. When the last call of 'Goodbye, I love you sweetheart', had faded from my mind, I felt nothing. I felt empty. It didn't feel bad and I didn't really mind, but I felt like I had nothing to give you.

I miss you.

Not in a physical sense. Because in a physical sense you are very much with me all the time. Too much of the time in fact.

But I miss the way you used to be. I miss how you would scream at me and then kiss me when I cried. I miss how you slammed the door in my face and then opened it two hours later to find me still sitting there waiting for you. I miss standing outside in the pouring rain, both of us cursing at each other, not knowing whether we were screaming because we hated each other or loved each other more.

I miss you loving me, then hating me. Then hating me and loving me again.

I miss how you laughed when I slapped your cheek and I miss feeling mad that I couldn't make you cry, like you could me. I miss how you teased me until I thought I would go mad. I miss driving to the beach in the middle of the night, walking along the edge of a cliff, with you threatening to push me until I said I would drag you down with me if you did.

I miss loving you the way you were.

I still love you, in a nice kind of way – the way that you love your little brother or a pet fish or something.

Not the way I used to though, and I miss that.

It's my fault though that things are the way they are. I was so mad at you that I screamed that if you would just change then my life would stop being the way it was. I didn't realize that I liked my life the way it was. So for once in your life, you stopped yelling. And you changed.

You changed for me. Not that I wanted you to, even though I said I did.

And now you're perfect and I miss you.

The old you, the imperfect, scream until you're blue in the face you. The kiss me 'til I push you away because I can't breathe you.

So then you took me out, so I could forget about you.

It didn't work. You were still in my dreams, a watermark of you was still over everything that I saw, your voice still played in my head, over and over and over, like a tape that I couldn't shut off.

It was driving me crazy.

So today I tried something else. I 'borrowed' your cousin, Nate, the one you had warned me about. The one that only wanted one thing from girls and you know which thing I mean. And when you came around (like you always did) Nate and I were in my room. My mom told you to just go on up the stairs when you asked where I was. I knew you would come up, that you would knock and then come in.

And when you opened the door, what you saw horrified you, I knew. Nate and me. Me and Nate. Sure, we hadn't actually done anything, but you didn't know that. You screamed, for the first time in a long time. The perfect barrier broke, the porcelain face shattered, and you were you again.

Nate ran. He knew not to mess with you when you were like that. And I just stood up lazily, running my fingers through my messed up hair, buttoning up my shirt. And I looked at you. Screaming at me as if the world was about to end.

And I smiled.

You were back.

And in an instant I was standing in front of you, my hands deep in your hair, pressing you up against the door, kissing you hard, as if there were no tomorrow. You were still trying to yell at me, trying to push me away, but your hands had a mind of their own and you were grabbing me and holding me closer.

Now, that's the way I love you.

So what did you think? Good, bad, yes, no?

Let me know. :)

Love you forever (and always),

-Nikki