Prompt: put your playlist on shuffle and write something inspired by the first song that plays.
Was it ever really love
If the night that we broke up
Both went out to go hook up
With the one we told each other not to worry about.
- seven, Natalie Jane.
I thought I was done with this one but something came to me in a dream and I just had to run with it!
Part II...
Her mind was wired, begging for her body to cooperate. She pleaded with her eyes - open... please - but they were too heavy with fatigue to obey.
She knew where she was. She knew exactly who's bed she was in... because it sure as hell wasn't hers. But the reality of this situation wouldn't set in fully. Not yet. Not until she saw the mess she had made.
Eventually she managed to pull her eyelids open - just long enough to see that she was alone - blinking rapidly as the light burned her irises. She looked at the digital clock on his bedside table... 07:00.
She rubbed her fingertips across her shut eyes, groaning internally as she forced her muscles into action, pulling herself from the comfort of the bed.
She grabbed her clothes from last night - hastily discarded of and left on the bedroom floor - and dressed herself, ignoring the ache inside.
Kate... what's wrong?
She must have cried herself to sleep, because she doesn't remember anything after that. She's not even sure if she answered him or not. All she remembers is the guilty feeling that settled deep within her as he nuzzled into her, placing kisses on the back of her neck as he held her.
She zipped her jeans, turning back to grab the jacket she had tossed on the bed. That was when she saw it - a handwritten note on the bedside table. All it said was 'call me, please'. He was concerned... of course he was concerned. After years of back and forth, they finally crossed that line. And what does she do? She cries.
It wasn't his fault.
It was her. All her.
Her and her stupid decisions.
Her and her need to get back at Josh. To hurt Josh.
Her and her internal freak out.
And poor Castle was just a casualty of her anger. She had never wanted this to happen... not like this, anyway. Not out of anger and spite. He didn't deserve that.
She scrunched the note up into a ball in her hand. She couldn't call him. Not yet. She was far too embarrassed. Crying over one man while in the arms of another... when had she become this person?
It was as if she kept running her fingertips across a 'self-destruct' button - toying with the idea of pushing it - but then getting upset when she accidentally slips and her world begins to implode. And yet she continues to run her fingertips over that damned button.
Consequences... impending.
Part III...
It took two weeks for her to spiral.
That's it.
Just fourteen days.
She sat on the bathroom floor, a sobbing mess.
I don't know why I'm like this, Lanie.
The horrid Kate Beckett curse. The reflex self-sabotaging tendencies that she swears she was born with. The inability to trust anything good... anything secure.
Her friend had been listening attentively for over an hour now as she recounted the steps - or, rather, the missteps - that landed her here.
Her relationship with Josh... a relationship that blossomed from Castle unknowingly rejecting her and leaving her behind that summer. He arguments - about anything and everything - that started too soon after. Her inability to commit. His inability to trust. The countless nights they stayed up arguing about Castle instead of making love.
And then... finally... she confessed to her friend what had happened that night. The break up. The revenge sex. The breakdown.
You'll figure this out. You know you're not alone in this, girl.
The note left on the bedside table.
The phone call never made.
The texts that were left on read.
The period that never came.
You need to tell him...
She stared at the stick in her hands, begging for the line in that little window to magically disappear. As if staring at it, willing it to go away, was enough to undo this mess she had made.
But... what if it's not his?
Consequences... suck.