Nobody ever told me life would be like this. Nobody ever said "Paige one day you're going to wake up and find yourself completely lost."
Nobody ever said I would love someone like this. That one day I would look around and find something so confusing and have it, at the same time, be the only thing in my life that had even the slightest amount of normalcy.
Being with Spinner was easy. He's sweet and I care about him but there's no complication. No realism, no passion, no expectations, no... reason to be anything more than what I was when we first met. I look at Spin and see drive-ins, popcorn fights and the days before I became a big fat failure. He looks at me and sees the girl everyone expected him to wind up with. But it wasn't meant to be. Not now, not ever. I told him he wouldn't like my choice, and I did choose Jesse.
Being with Jesse is easy too. There's no attachment. We both know this won't last, although which one of us will break it off first is still up for grabs. I look at him and see something new, interesting; something beyond high school and the label I and everyone else slapped on my forehead. He looks at me and sees an escape from fighting, he sees flashes of confusion and longing for something I don't have. And right now, he can delude himself a little into thinking he can fix that for me. Right now, I choose to let him.
Being with Alex was never easy. It was never supposed to be. We were meant to challenge each other, to push and push until the other one pushed back. It was in everything we did, it is in everything we do now. Like every time we kissed it was a challenge and the other one had to think fast and answer right or lose the game. Except it was never a game. It was never innocent. Never easy. I look at Alex and see change. I see ambition and drive even though sometimes she's not sure why she keeps schlepping along like this so sure is she that she means nothing and will amount to nothing as well. I see loyalty and empathy even when she tries to hide behind being a badass. I see vulnerability and the sweetness that lies so close to her bones. I see intelligence and wonder, and complexity that I have never found in anyone else. She looks at me and sees what? What does she see? Someone who keeps jerking her around because I can't get a handle on things? I'm not jerking her around, not intentionally. Nothing I've done has been out of malice. Selfishness yes, insecurity certainly; love, without question. At least for me there is no question.
She just told me she loves me. Gave me the most passionate, most urgent, most fulfilling and needful kiss I've ever had in my life and then she told me she loved me. So much it scared the crap out of her. And I know it does and I know why too. Loving someone like this is a gaping wound you inflict upon yourself. You dig a hole out of your heart and hope to God that the other person fills it for you. My heart is full. So full it can barely manage to beat when I'm around her. And that's why I finally know what she sees when she looks at me. She sees I love her. She has to, it permeates everything I do, everything I say. She sees that I love her and she sees me lie to myself again. She sees me walk away from her like she doesn't matter. And even though I'm not looking at her, I see her face. I see her pain, the pain I've caused her.
But as I walk away I see something more, I see a promise to be fulfilled. I see hope for the first time since I left Banting.
Sometimes we walk through life blindly and the only way we can see is if we close our eyes and let our other senses guide us. Sometimes we trip, sometimes we fall. Sometimes we have to in order to end up where we're supposed to be. And while I'm not confused anymore, I'm still not ready. I'm not who she needs me to be.
I love her and she loves me. We look at each other and we see ourselves, all the glory, all the pain. The failures and successes. The truth and the lies.
I look at her and I see my future.
Ultimately I choose her, I choose me; I choose us.
THE END