The Art of Pretending

Chapter Fifteen

   "My dad thought I stressed out my mom so much and I made it harder for her to get better, he thinks I helped kill her. He hurts me sometimes when he's drunk and angry. I'm his fuck up."

   I pick up my cup and hold it up towards Grayson. "Here's to us," he looks over at me. "The fuck ups."

   "The fuck ups." He lifts his cup and we drink to that. Two people with so many issues, unalike but alike.

   I look at the dark water below us. "I could jump and be fine dying." I say. I look down at the water, peaceful, the only word I could describe it.

   "I could push you" Grayson mumbles.

   "Shut up" I laugh

   "I could jump and be fine dying." He says serious.

I turn my head and look at him. The boy everyone put on a pedestal. The one who hated himself. I look at him. The boy who hid his sorrows with alcohol and sex. The boy who was breaking, crying for help. But for some reason never heard.

   "Promise not to try and fix me." He joked.

   "Only if you promise not to try and fix me."

   "I promise"

   "Ok, then I promise."

   I promised not to fix him, and I won't. How can I fix someone when I can't even fix myself. We sat there, two broken people. Two fuck ups.
***

We sit in peaceful silence. Grayson turns his head and looks at me. I turn my head and look at him. I feel his hand touch my cheek. He starts to play with a strand of my hair.

"What are you..." I'm stopped

"Ashlyn is looking" he whispered. I'm about to turn my head to look when he stops me again. "Don't look you'll make it obvious."

We sit staring at each other for a couple more minutes. Something about his touch is comforting. "You have freckles." He's whispers "I've never noticed before."

Fuck. My chest tightens. He's never noticed anything really about me.  I stare into his eyes. The ones that are so hard to describe. It's unfair for someone to have eyes like his.

"I like them." He says.

Fuck. I'm getting this feeling that I can't describe. It's like I want him, but not how I did before. I feel like he sees me. He knows some of my darkest secrets now. I still don't know why I told him or why he told me. All I know is that it's nice that I'm not the only one whose not perfect.

It's nice having someone know about my life. Keeping everything inside would of been the death of me.

He's still holding the side of my face.

"Is she still looking?" I mumble

He looks to the side of my head, and then back at me. "Yea." Without thinking I leaned in and kissed him. This wasn't a lustful kiss. It was as innocent as two kids two kids pushing each other on the swings, helping each other out. It was slow and nice.