Title: After All
Summary: Manny/Craig. How they are. How it ends up. Who knows what will happen and who knows what my crazy mind will make happen!
Rating: PG-13...subject to change since I'm thinking this might get a little more "intense" later if you know what i mean.
Author's Note: Read it. Review it if you want! Cause that'd be grately apperciated with this little wannabe author. Thanks.
She was so naïve. And yet she loved him. He didn't understand what had happened, realizing again how stupid he had been. She wasn't like him, but he needed her. To see her lost, to see what he had done made him feel more pain than she could ever imagine. He didn't really care about what people thought of him anymore, but to think he was the reason for her shattered reputation...and to think he couldn't save her this time was something he didn't like to think about. Sometimes anger crept up on him he wished so many things were different. Instead he kept on living, watching her put her head down in the halls, watching her as people whispered, he sometimes got angry that she was so vulnerable.
To put it all in perspective...he loved her too. He needed her and he didn't know why. He needed to protect her, cause the world was far too dangerous for her to go on without him. After all that had happened, he knew he'd always come back to her. It wasn't about who he should love, or what was best for him...he didn't know why but she was something to him that no one else was. That was something he would do anything to define, it was something he'd do anything to understand, and it was something he'd do anything just to have again.
It was 6:30 and Manny's alarm clock was screaming at her. Ever since she was little she hated the sound of them, even in movies they always reminded her of something evil that shattered something as peaceful as sleep. Especially these days, her alarm clock was the enemy. It was the constant reminder that no matter how hard she tried to block out the world around her, she would eventually need to crawl out of bed. She would eventually need to find a reason to pick an outfit and pretend about caring to do her hair and makeup.
She could distract herself for a while as she contemplated meaningless decisions such as putting on pink or clear lip-gloss for the day, or if her hair should look best up or down. It was in these little decisions that Manny shut out her world. Eventually she'd emerge from her room, looking in the full-length mirror. She remembered when she used to look in t hat mirror and be so pleased with what she saw. Especially last year, she was so proud of herself looking in the mirror with a sense of accomplishment. She remembered the giddy excitement she'd have every time she'd put together one of her new ensembles. Now all she saw was herself. Stuck somewhere, trapped in something that she couldn't handle anymore. Today she decided not to bother, not to look in the mirror.
It would be the same.
As usual today it would all be the same. She'd come in and the whispers would be there. She would pretend not to care, and she would shut it out with every single part of her that was still there. The only thing that made this a problem was she did. She cared more than anything. But not for the people around her looking down at her whispering to their friends about "that girl." She cared about how he didn't talk to her anymore. That she still cared about him. She thought she had gone past that little girl stage; she would have liked to think that she was too mature for that. She hated how she still felt like a little girl whenever she saw him.
She hated that she still cared more than anything...
after everything.