Being The Player's Neighbour

Chapter 21 - Life Isn't A Movie

“I’m sorry.”
Too short.

“I wanted to apologise.”
Too formal.

“Can you forgive me?”
Too desperate. I wasn’t the only one at fault here.

“I’m sorry, Aaron. I shouldn’t have spoken about your mother that way.”
Perfect.

I had woken up half an hour ago and since then I had been practising my apology.
I’d come to a conclusion that it was really mean of me yesterday to lash out at Aaron like that. And that I shouldn’t be asking him to sacrifice his dreams either.

Today, at school, I would apologise to him. We’d say our goodbyes when the time came but until then, I wouldn’t let a stupid fight come in between us.

~*~

“Hi!” I greeted Sara as she walked out of class.

Even though we didn’t share any classes, we’d grown quite close in the past few weeks, spending almost every lunch period together. We talked about anything and everything and it was the most I’d spoken to anyone in school in a long time.

Just as she launched into the description of an interesting incident in her Math class, I spotted a certain tall, dark haired boy having a heated argument with five of his friends.
I quickly told Sara that I’d catch up with her later and walked up to the conspicuous group.

When they saw me, all the noise stopped.

“Did he tell you he had applied to Oxford?” Daniel snapped at me but his anger was directed at Aaron.

I stared in confusion at him and then shook my head.
“Not before yesterday.”

Kyle snorted and sent Aaron a disappointed look.
“That’s what I thought. So much for eight years of friendship, huh?”

They all walked away one by one and Sam, the only one who didn’t seem too offended, shrugged and said, “Sorry about that, bro. But they’ll come around.”

“Wow. They didn’t seem too thrilled. I’m guessing they just got to know about your...uh...future plans.” I said awkwardly when we were the only two left.

He gave me a flat look and mumbled, “Graduation’s next week. I leave soon after that.”

Amidst all the recent drama I’d almost forgotten about the finals that would start this week.
Thank God I’d studied earlier.

“Aaron,” I started, as he began to walk away.
But when he turned around and faced me again, I was at a loss for words. All that practise in the morning was rendered absolutely useless when his smouldering eyes looked expectantly at me.

“Yesterday...”

He held up a hand to stop me and shook his head.
“We both said things we shouldn’t have. Gotta go.” Glancing at the time on his phone, he took off in the opposite direction.

He left me standing there, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Was he still mad?
Wasn’t I supposed to be mad too?
Why did I have an iron lump in my throat and a hundred needles in my eyes?
Why did it feel like my heart was being trampled on by a thousand horses?
Did every little fight or misunderstanding always hurt this much?

Be strong, Avery.
You’ve done it before, you can do it again. Your life doesn’t need to depend so much on somebody else.

And that was all I kept chanting to myself for the whole week.
I tried to concentrate real hard on not looking out of the window every second of every day.

I attempted to talk to him once more to sort things out, but “we both have to focus on our finals and we don’t need distractions” was all I got in return.

The day all the high school students finished their papers, the hallways were buzzing with tangible excitement and everywhere I saw, people were celebrating.

I just slipped out of school silently and made my way home. I was supposed to be happy but instead a horrible sense of foreboding weighed down my thoughts, a burden which I couldn’t seem to get rid of, no matter what I did.

Another week passed and I knew the day was close when I’d wake up one morning and he’d be gone.

The doorbell startled me out of my revere and when I opened the door, standing in front of me was the very subject of my brooding.

“I came to give you these.”
Aaron said stoically.

It didn’t escape me that he put a lot of space between us and was careful not to even let our fingers brush while he handed me a manila envelope.

Deciding not to say anything about it, I just slid the contents out and couldn’t help smiling when I saw pictures of us. They were the ones we’d clicked on one of the numerous days we’d spent in the beautiful meadow.

Not caring about his detached behaviour or his cold attitude, I reached up and crashed my lips against his.
He immediately turned rigid and for a moment I thought he would push away.
But then as if a switch had been flipped, he gave in and kissed me back with equal desperation.

Love, fear, pain, lust and sadness.
That one kiss held all the emotions we both felt.

“I love you so much.” I whispered as I felt a tear slide down my cheek.

“I love you too, beautiful.” He replied, wiping the tears away. “Don’t ever stop smiling.”

Still in a daze, I carefully admired each picture. There was one of our names carved into the cherry blossom tree.
I remembered how, for one day, we’d decided to do all the cheesy things couples usually did. The tree carving was one of them.

I just happened to flip the picture over and was really surprised to find something written on the back.

Small correction to be made there...
Avery Miller.

Avery....Miller.

Avery Miller.

I laughed at my thoughts and turned to Aaron.
“A new name feels so weir-” I almost stopped breathing.

There was nobody.
He was gone!

Wait...in the movies, wasn’t this supposed to be the part where there was a change of plans and the guy stayed back for the girl or asked the girl to go with him?
Neither of those things had happened here.

So the truth was quite clear.
Life isn't a movie. He wasn’t going to stay and he sure as hell didn’t want me to go with him.

And that hurt. A lot.

------------------------------------------

Author’s Note: Sorry! The rose tinted glasses don't stay forever :/

But I promise it gets better…soon (maybe after another chapter or so :P Meh. I’ve given away too much).
Patience, people, patience. xP

So, a bucket load of love…no, a Grand Canyon load of love to ya’all cause now my story has crossed 112,000 reads :’O
That is absolutely flabbergasting! <3

Song: Royals by Lorde
Cause I’m in love with the harmony and her voice :’)

Xoxo
~Av~