8.
But I'm not even close without you
It's 2am. The streetlights and the moon cast a dim light into his room, throwing shadows across his ceiling. He's staring up in the darkness.
The perfect date. The perfect date.
He repeats that to himself many times, but somehow it doesn't register.
Because despite all that went well, despite his mind telling him that everything with Brenda had gone perfectly, his heart told him otherwise.
His heart told him that something was missing.
His heart told him that it had not been the perfect date.
His heart was going along with it, until he kissed her. She was a good kisser, and it was a sweet kiss. But he felt nothing. No sparks, no electricity surging through his veins, no light-headed daze when they pulled away. It was just a kiss. A plain kiss.
He feels like punching the wall in anger and frustration, because he knows that the only person who has ever made him feel that way is her. The one he had been trying so damn hard to forget. The one whose kisses he had been trying so damn hard to forget.
He hated that he couldn't force himself to expel her from his mind. He hated that he couldn't make the kiss between him and Brenda have that spark. He hated that he couldn't even control who he wanted to love.
Then he wonders, did he even want to love Brenda?
He knows he's just trying to stop loving Riley.
Was this it, then? Was he destined to lay here for many more countless nights, drowning in his pain and his regret and in his sorrow until the day it drove him to his grave? Was he destined to love only her for the rest of his life?
The inner voices, the ones from deep in the darkness of his mind, where raw truth and brutal honesty stirred, told him yes.
He did not sleep that night.
He would rather stare at the ceiling for hours, than stare into his mind.
