Champagne Problems / Taylor Swift
*If you know this song, you know it's not a happy one.
. . .
Nathan books the night train for a reason- the world always seems sadder after the sun goes down. He wears the darkness like a cloak,staring out the empty window, feeling every thread of hurt snap in his breaking heart.
As the train slows to another stop, he wonders which is worse: a bustling crowd of people, or the few who are left sleeping. It doesn't matter, he supposes. It all hurts the same: ten thousand people, or only one, he's still alone.
None of it had gone as planned. The last two hours, now a blurred ghost that will haunt him forever- even with his eyes squeezed tight, the moment becomes a memory he cannot escape.
She was in his arms, her head on his chest- a position so familiar. They were dancing. She asked him why his heart was beating so fast. He swallowed and smiled. Those big brown eyes of hers never blinked.
"Haley James," he started, the words crackled against his dry lips, "I love you. I have always loved you, and I will love you forever..."
He had a speech planned, but her next words left him speechless.
"Nathan, stop. Please."
She dropped his hand- then his heart. Both were glass.
"Haley?"
She left him on the dancefloor before he even had the chance to ask.
When did it go wrong, he wonders.
The ring- once belonging to his beloved grandmother- now burns a hole in his pocket. Haley's picture is still in his wallet. He doesn't think he can ever get rid of it.
Nathan never should have told his family- but he couldn't keep it in. When he walks through the door, they're expecting Haley will be beside him. When she's not, the celebration stops before it could ever begin. Nathan's mother is already drunk- though, even she knows from the tears in her son's eyes that the night did not have the ending any of them had planned.
"She was never good enough for you, son," his father tries to console him, but the words hold no truth for Nathan.
Weeks pass and word somehow spreads.
Their friends ask, but she never did give him a reason.
They find excuses. Nathan doesn't believe a single one.
He knows her - knows her better than anyone.
They'd met on a cold November night during their freshman year at Columbia. He found her on the balcony, shivering in a sleeveless dress. Nathan wordlessly wrapped his flannel shirt around her shoulders. They talked 'till two am, before offering to walk her to her dorm, laughing when they realized they lived in the same building.
"This dorm was once a madhouse," she told him, "it's made for me."
The sound of her laugh was when he realized he'd already fallen in love.
She told him, years later, if they'd ever broken up, she'd never be able to walk past their dorm again, for it holds too many memories of them.
Nathan thinks of it now with a sadness so profound he feels it scraping against his soul- those very same halls they once walked through now are home to new students, two of whom he'd be willing to bet are probably about to fall in love. He wonders if they will have the same tragic fate as he and Haley.
Their friends are no longer 'theirs'. His friends or hers. They share nothing now but memories made of lingering sadness, a few short years, and forgotten future.
He doesn't know Haley wasn't ready. She didn't know how to tell him. She watched him go with his head hanging in defeat. Regret carved a river wide enough, it'd soon turn into an ocean. Haley never had an answer until Nathan got down on one knee, and she knew he deserved more than she could ever give him.
Months would pass and she could only imagine what they would all say: how she would've made such a lovely bride, but it's a shame she's fucked in the head; how he'll find real love one day; how he'll forget all of her problems.
It is these thoughts that hurt her the most.
But then one day, on a cold day in November, Nathan is standing outside of her apartment.
"It's ok if you're not ready yet- you don't ever have to be ready- but I don't want to lose you, Haley. I can't lose you."
These are the words she needed to hear the most.
"Do you still want me, Haley?"
She launches her body into his, tears staining his t-shirt. "I always do."
"Then I'm not going anywhere," he promises.
