Bitterness envelopes them.
She is lying out of her teeth.
He offers everything, everything but his heart.
There are short gasps on the other side of the phone. He doesn't hear them, and even if he does, he wouldn't ask why. It's not because he doesn't care – it's because he doesn't know why they are there.
There are breaks of silence, where the other yearns to tell the truth, to confess, to stand with their soul wide open and revealing. But neither takes up the opportunity- because rejection is the most feared.
He tells her half lies. He is too polite to outright deny her. He wonders why someone would still love him after all he has done to them. She wonders the same thing.
But she denies the truth as she denies the feelings in her heart. She loves him, this she knows. But what she doesn't know is if he loves her the same way, the same magnitude. She values their friendship too much to say anything. She fears losing him more than she does anything else.
He mumbles things under his breath. Little phrases that escape despite his control. Soon those muffled sentences become something of the past and silence becomes them more than any sound.
He wrongs her – dangles her on a string, even though he doesn't want to. When she tells him of other guys, he knows it is all a ploy and he feigns interest. It's alright to build a facade if it protects her. She makes excuses for him. She idolizes him, puts him on a pedestal, and she hides his flaws because she is frightened of the truth. If she chooses to outright acknowledge his apathy towards her, if she chooses to publicly recognize this indifference then perhaps it will be the death of something she has been trying to revive.
She knows he doesn't love her; never will, for he belongs to another.
At one point it had been fun for him, now it is something strained, useless and already too worn to be anything else. It had died even before it lived, whatever it was.
She doesn't listen to her friends, because she is beginning to believe in the excuses that she has made for him.
It's sad when she begins to believe in the fabricated stories that she tells.
Unrequited love is the worst kind of all. It leads the lover into thinking that there is a possibility, makes the lover think that she has a chance and then it kills her slowly, and chokes her with her own lies.
But the tragic thing is the lover will never know because deception is a weapon that this false love wields gracefully.
Once, he gave her some flowers. It was out of convenience, not much thought was put into it. He picked them off the cracked side walks on the way to her house.
She sees them and her heart floods with joy; she doesn't see the clumps of dirt still attached to them, and she doesn't see the aphids clinging to the petals, no to her these dandelions are roses.
He visits her later that week out of her pleading and request. His eyes scan the room and his heart falls silently into his chest. The flowers that were little more than weeds are still in vase, rotting against the windowsill. The petals have lost their luster, and the flowers are slightly rotting. For the first time he realizes how much she cares, and it pains him that his feelings for her are purely platonic.
She catches his eyes, and her mouth opens. But silence is all that comes out. She doesn't know how to excuse herself for her behavior.
"It's alright," he whispers.
She nods, and again somehow her love for him has shamed them both. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is.
He stands there, not even taking one step towards her, and he looks away
He leaves her, alone, again.
She walks over to the windowsill and fingers the petals, and one-by-one they fall. Her muffled cries shatter the silence. Those flowers were the only thing he has ever given her. It's not her fault that she wanted to keep something so sentimental.
She swears to herself this is the last time. But the heart rarely ever listens to the head.
She wonders if tomorrow she will feel different, if tomorrow she can ask him back for her heart.
