Roses Stained Red

Missing Buttons.

"What's with the missing buttons?" He asked, pointing at the jacket I was wearing.

I looked down at the two missing buttons in the middle and the one missing at the very bottom. I smiled to myself and looked back up, into his eyes.

"Oh, I let my, uh-" I hesitated, not quite sure what to call her. "-friend borrow my jacket a lot whenever I couldn't be around in the moments that she needed me." I sadly glanced over at her; she was already looking over at me. I guess she heard. Instead of looking away in panic, like I usually do, I calmly looked back down, "The buttons, well, just two of the buttons fell out along the way. The first one was gone before I let her borrow it."

"Oh."

He probably figures he just touched a sensitive subject. It's not that sensitive. It's quite complex, but also very simple at the same time. She made me happy, and I loved her. I don't regret any of it, even if she might. Who knows, you know?

I decided to continue to talk about it, "Yeah. This is the one jacket that I don't trust anybody with. So, you know she meant a great deal to me since I let her have my jacket—even forgiving her immediately when she told me two more buttons went missing."

"Oh, wow. That's... something." He wasn't quite sure what was safe to say.

"It's okay. You can speak your mind with me."

"Aright, then I must ask this," He shifted his weight to his right leg as I stood up straighter. "You speak so... highly yet sadly of her. What happened?"

Oh boy. I took a sharp breath. "Well," I looked slightly around and to the sides, trying to think of the most summarized way to put it. "I... don't even know, to be honest with you." I let out a nervous laugh.

He awkwardly chuckled with me. He's going along with me, trying to be patient and prepare himself for a whirlwind of something non-understandable.

I spoke up with my first thought, "In the beginning, it was like two mockingbirds, okay? We were called to each other. We helped each other. A little more me than her, then it became a little more her than me."

He nodded, squinting a bit out of confusion and furrowing his brows. That made me slightly smile to myself. He doesn't quite get it, but at least he's listening and trying to understand.

I continued, "That's just how we were. It repeated back and forth like that for a while, but then it suddenly changed. I listened to her call, pushing mine aside. I went quiet, she became louder. She silenced me by calling over me, making my call seem too small to matter. I reluctantly believed her for a while. So, all it was was just her having her call answered all the time while mine ceased to exist into the echoes of hers." 

His eyes slowly widened back up and he stood up straight, finally getting it and he even seemed a little shocked. I've been so easily speaking my mind to him lately that he probably didn't expect to hear that I allowed somebody to invalidate my emotions and problems; especially a best friend at that.

"Yeah, stupid, right?" I shook my head lightly, feeling like an idiot over what I allowed.

"Actually, not at all." He responded, looking very seriously into my eyes.

This made me shrink into myself from feeling understood and cared about for the first time since she had last cared.

"Oh... well... thanks..." I said a bit more quietly while looking down, breaking the eye contact, and shifted my weight to my left leg. "...so, well, anyways," I made myself recover quickly, back to standing up straight again. "It was just her getting helped while I ignored my issues. Then, things began to change again. We changed from two mockingbirds to a tiny, but fierce, blue jay and a bold, strong-headed eagle. I helped her grow so much—into something she needed to be, that I knew she could be." 

I am getting sentimental and kind of emotional. I'm picturing things that have happened. I need to stop. My eyes are now wanting to spill out their tears, but I swallow the lump feeling in my throat, blink away the forming tears and breathe in deep, exhaled, and continued on. 

"I am the blue jay and she is the eagle. Again, she is the eagle.She needed to be free. Our fierce and strong-headed ways clashed against each other, so she started to grow bitter and want space. Neither of us really knew why though, until a little bit ago." I paused. I shouldn't go into detail about what it is.This is supposed to be a summary, and I'm failing miserably.

I realized he was staring at me, waiting for me to continue.

I quietly sighed disappointingly at myself first then continued, "So, I apologized for it, she still stayed bitter and angry, and then stood me up when I wanted to talk about something serious in person with her, so I finally let her go. Everything else she did I could handle but standing me up and avoiding confrontation after all this growth is where I drew the line." He nodded understandingly. "That's whenever I realized she was no longer a bird. She was a snake. She turned into the group of people that I use to know—that I purposefully left and avoided because they were horrible, I did not want to be friends with them and become one of them." 

I was now just becoming angry talking about this. I sighed in frustration this time, but he stepped a little closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder in comfort. I didn't realize how tense I was until he did that. It made me relax just enough to collect my thoughts together before this turned into a roast about her.

I gave him a small smile as a silent 'thanks' and he did the same back.

"Anyways, yeah. Once I realized that, that's when I was completely done. I removed her from every social media I had her on. She was already not speaking to me anymore anyway so it's not like I made the first move, all I did was finish it with the moves she was not brave enough to make."

He nodded once again. "Is that why you're no longer wearing the silver ring you use to always wear?"

"Yeah-" I stopped, taken aback. "Wait, how did you know I even wore a ring?" I asked.

He smiled innocently at me. "You're not the only one who noticed things change about someone."

I gaped my mouth and put my hand on my heart, acting fake hurt.

"Wow, roast me. Don't hold back." I joked.

He laughed, his eyes twinkled a little and his cheeks started to go slightly pink. I chuckled and smiled back with the same joy, I'm sure I was starting to blush as well.

We continued to talk a little more about it and some other things before parting ways at the end of the day. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Maybe I'll be able to breathe better now and not feel so angry about what happened between her and me anymore.