Starting Over

11

I made my way back to my dorm, Taylor was asleep so I crept in as quietly as possible.I pulled off my cloths that I had been in all day, the release of my tight jeans against my skin felt so freeing. I pulled on a big tshirt and nothing more, falling onto my bed and covering myself with the blanket. I was in bed at almost 2AM, but I was not sleeping.

Why can't Hayes just forget? Why can't he realize that we can't replay the past? Why can't he just move on? I can't go on knowing he's still living in the memories. Those memories are gone, and they're not coming back.

I didn't sleep more than a wink that night. Taylor was waking up for her morning class.

"You look awful." she said.

"Thanks." I spat.

"What happened last night?"

I sat up on the end of the bed, "Why can't Hayes move on?"

I know I shouldn't have said anything but I couldn't hold it in. It was pulling at my brain.

Her expression dropped, "You don't see it do you?"

I looked at her for an answer. Didn't see what? Am I missing the big picture or something?

"He's genuinely still in love with you." she told me.

"But he can't be!" I got up from the mattress, "It's been over a year since we saw each other or even talked, and the first time he sees me he's in love again? Does that make any sense to you?"

"He's not in love with you again."

"You just said-"

"It's not again because it never stopped."

I closed my mouth, not knowing how to respond to that. Then said "How can you tell?"

"I can see it. The way he looks at you. He looks at you like you put the stars in the sky. Hayes would do anything for you, and you know that."

"Anything but leave me alone." I sat back down.

"Hey," Taylor picked up her books beginning to head out, "maybe we're both wrong. Maybe he is still the same Hayes."

"Taylor, you see what he's like now. He's not the same. He's into drugs and he's a fuck boy now."

"And he wasn't before?!" Taylor snapped.

I closed my mouth because I didn't want to say that he was a drug lord and a fuck boy but I still fell in love with him.

"Hayes Grier has always been a fuck boy flirt with nothing on his mind but drugs. But he's always had a soft spot for you, Sam." Taylor argued, "He stopped drugs because you wanted him to. He stopped flirting with every girl because you wanted him to. He stopped drinking because you wanted him to. He started trying in school because you wanted him to. He got better because he wanted you. And he fell in love because he needs you as much as you need him."

Taylor could not have been more real and true. She was the kind of person who is always there to open your eyes to the reality that you don't want to see. That's exactly what it was, reality that I didn't want to see. Taylor was right and in the back of my mind I knew it too. I couldn't look at her, or I would just admit how true everything she just said was, and I did not want to. I stared at the floor without speaking a word. Taylor left me there with my thoughts after a few minutes of my silence.

Taylor was right in every single way. Hayes would change for me in a second. It's true that he has always been a fuck boy and some how involved with drugs, I just never wanted to admit that I was with someone like that. I always saw the good in Hayes, but now I'm only seeing that worst in him. Taylor got me thinking, and nothing good ever comes from that.