If You Love Me

14

a v e r y

IT HAS BEEN FOUR DAYS since I last saw Dean. Four days in which I had thought about him almost every minute of; four days in which I had stared at my phone in hopes that he would call; and four days in which I slowly began to feel progressively worse. The look on his face had become permanently etched into my brain, playing on a loop every single time that I closed my eyes.

All the other times that I had let my thoughts get the best of me and sabotage the potential of something great, I felt absolutely nothing. It was as though the encounter had never happened, slowly fading into the depths of the earth into a corner to never be remembered.

— but with Dean I felt horrible and I knew exactly why: I regretted it.

The boy that entered my life mere weeks ago had impacted me more than I wished he had. The boy that looked at me like I was worth than what was between my legs had caused me to not only to regret the way in which I had discarded him, but miss him.

Throughout the past four days I found myself missing the way that he would appear when I least expected it, yet needed it the most; the way that his smile always managed me to make me smile along him; and the way that he always knew what to say. He had a gift that I wished I had— I did not know how to say that I was sorry.

I took after my mother in many ways, one in which being our ability to lack remorse in times we should. We spoke so boldly, not always caring who it had affected. We had the privilege of always being forgiven, never quite having learnt to apologize or even want to.

But I wanted to start over with Dean and in order to do that, I would need to apologize to him.

The bathroom door opens and Olivia saunters back into the room leaving the mist that she had been entrapped in for the past fifteen minutes behind. Her dark brown curls falls limply against her shoulders as she holds a plush white towel to her body. Droplets of water leave a trail where her feet had once been the further she walks into the room. She pushes the clothes of hers that were on her desk chair on to the floor allowing it join the mess that was already there before taking a seat on the now bare surface. As she grabs a hold of her hair dryer, her fingers on the switch, her eyes make contact with mine in the mirror. A small smile tugs at the corners of her lips.

She turns around in the chair, her full attention now being given to me.

"What are you doing tonight?" She asks.

"This." I respond while gesturing to the bed that my limbs laid sprawled out across.

"Come out with me." She says. "Dean will be there."

"We aren't exactly on speaking terms right now."

"Why? What happened?" She asks, confusion clearly evident in her voice and her eyebrows raised. "I saw the way that you two were looking at each other at the restaurant the other night."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, I get it." She nods before turning away from me and resuming her place in front of the mirror. This time though instead of taking a hold of her hair dryer, she grabs the hair brush making it known that she wants to continue the conversation which is something that would be nearly impossible over the hum of a dryer.

"What?" I ask.

"It's clear that you don't let people in, Avery. I'm guessing that Dean tried to get too close." She says, her eyes meeting mine as she continues to brush through her hair.

At her words, my eyes leave hers and resume to the wall that I had been staring at while she had been in the bathroom.

I listen as the brush falls on to the surface of her desk and her desk chair scrapes against the hardwood floors. As she moves to stand, her feet pad over to my side of the dorm until they cease at the end of my bed. I look back up at her to find her fiddling with the wool of my blanket, her eyes on lingering on the artwork I had placed on my walls and then to the shelf that was overflowing with books.