A/N: Oh look, another TSC fic. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: This is the work and play of fanfiction. I don't own anything. Everything belongs to their respective owners.
i would have loved you all my life
Diana's not blind. On the contrary, she's very observant. She has to be, a perfectionist like herself notices all the little details. She saw it coming long before they, themselves, caught on. It was happening in front of her, around all of them, between them. She tried so hard to see past it, to chalk it up to curiosity, if anything, but it turned out to be something so much more, something she would never be able to compete with. It was heartbreaking; dream shattering and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening. To keep him. He was falling in love with someone else right before her eyes and it killed her. He was her best friend, the only person who really knew her and now he was gone. She had to let him go, for both their sake's. It didn't make it easier but it made it real. Evident. Tangible. The distance was dwindling what he felt for her. She could feel it in his touch; she could see it in his eyes. He was forgetting him&her and all she could do was pretend it was ok, that she understood when in reality she didn't. She doesn't get why it has to be Cassie and not her. She's loved him for so long. If anyone should be destined to be with him it's her. She wants so badly to tell him that. To make him see that they belong together. But, then Diana sees him, notices how his eyes automatically search for Cassie, how he angles his body towards the blonde when they stand close together, how his gaze lingers and she knows it is the end of them. She will never be the one for him; even when she knows he will always be the one for her.
All she has left are memories, photographs, empty words and a planned future left to rust. She can't tell which hurts the most. All she wants to do is keep them locked away somewhere in her mind where she can't find them. Where they won't hurt her.
Melissa reaches out to her one day. She tells her that she knows what it is like to have something and then lose it. It may not be the same but they still lost someone they loved. They start spending time together, they volunteer at school, they join committee after committee and it keeps them busy and maybe this what she needs. To be on her own and fill up her time by focusing on other things. She even occasionally spends time with Melissa and Faye. Day after day pass by and she feels lighter, and she can't help but think that maybe this is what it feels like to finally be moving on.
She walks in on Adam researching something on his computer at the abandoned house, one day. Diana didn't mean to sneak up on him and she is able to catch a glance at what he was doing before asking him about it. He's startled and closes his computer telling her it was nothing. Just stuff. And she can't help but wonder if this is what they have become. She tells him he never could lie to save his life and so he tells her. It's so strange and disheartening to have to coax him in some way to open up to her. Where have they gone? Those two kids who were so in love once upon a time. She shakes it off and listens. He asks her no to say anything about what he was doing. He promised Cassie he wouldn't speak about it to anyone. He promised Cassie. Cassie. He packs up his stuff and tells her he has to meet up with Cassie. "I'll catch you later," he says and leaves. "No, you won't." She whispers to the empty, abandoned house. She had it under control, didn't she? She was moving on, wasn't she? So why was she having a hard time breathing? That night she falls asleep thinking about broken promises.
Maybe she's a masochist. Why else would she have agreed to talk to Cassie about giving Adam a chance? It hadn't been fair of Adam to ask her to do such thing either but she wanted them to see that she was moving on as well, or at least trying to. She wondered if he even knew what he was putting her through. If he even cared enough.
There's just so much one person can take. She accepted the fact that they were together. Hell, she had pretty much given Cassie her blessing to correspond to Adam's advances. But having them constantly try to pull her in into their relationship was too much. False pretense could only go so far. Diana hadn't meant to snap at Adam. She hadn't meant to say those things to him. She really didn't but his indifference or lack of acknowledgment towards her feelings was the last straw. All she wants to do is move on, to be able to breathe. She wants to wake up in morning and know there won't be a need to fake a smile that day. She doesn't want to resent them she loves them. She still considers them to be some of her closest friends but she needs her space from them.
[One day she will wake up and all of this will fade into the past. She will look at them and there will be no hurt, no resentment, just happiness for them from her. She will have moved on.]
But, for now she can't help and think that she would have loved him all her life. If only he'd given her the chance.