GONER

36 • Troubled Navigation Of Human Beings

I fought the smile that was struggling for appearance on my face, but, in the end, it beat me. It spread across my dry lips and moved up to my tired eyes, and I bit at my bottom lip to try and smother it again. And I wasn't stupid. Flowers weren't cheap, and it kind of meant a lot to me to know he did this, and collected his thoughts enough to care about what I was feeling, and to address it. Also, if you add in the fact that Josh was something I wasn't ever going to deserve, I chose to take the flowers from him.

"Thanks," I whsipered. "Can we, like, go to the lake. Please? I just wanna sit down, and talk to you, and not in this house." I admitted quietly. "Just come in. While I get my shoes and stuff."

Because he wasn't in a position to oppose me, he nodded quickly, stepping in the door. I walked over to the kitchen before he could say anything else, and the metallic taste of my own blood was filling my mouth from how hard I was biting at my lip. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him what I was thinking while he could get away, and I wasn't going to reveal what I've discovered in the midst of his little adventure, but it was close.

~~~

"I missed you a lot," Josh sighed lowly, which were the first words any of us had said since we got here.

The two of us have been in the same spot, in absolute, tense silence for thirty minutes. We didn't even talk in the car, or look at each other, and so it was strange to hear his voice after so long. It was such an incomprehensible feeling, but it was so easy to understand, at the same time. I didn't want to be mad at him any more than I was, but I was. The point of the matter is that I cared about him so much, and I loved him. I loved Josh.

Truth be told, I don't think he'd know what missing someone like him felt like, because he was like the plants that produced my oxygen, and when all the plants withered away and died, I couldn't breathe.

"I would tell you that I didn't miss you, but that would be a lie," I muttered bitterly.

"Well. That's good to know. I'm glad I came back, then."

"Shut up."

"What? Why?"

Suddenly, rage was flaring through my entire body. It felt like fire was spreading across every inch of available skin, and turning everything I knew into ashes, and burning my mind, and I really just wanted to burn his, too. Just for him to be on the same page I was, and realize how much he keeps doing to me.

"Shut up!" I shouted into the woods the both of us were suffocating in, and the water that was rushing below us, trying to force him to put things into perspective. "Literally shut the hell up. Why do you think that driving an entire state over over is a good thing to do when you're scared, or whatever?"

"First off, I'm not scared! And I explained this to you, earlier. I know it's not a good idea!" He replied indignantly. "I already told you that I know I'm a screw up, okay? I know that."

"That's not what I'm saying!" I replied, shaking my head. "But you can't make this all about you every single time something happens."

"I'm not trying to," he scoffed, bringing himself to his feet. I knew he wasn't going to leave without me, but an annoyed feeling rose in my chest, and then I was standing, too. "But it happens sometimes, and I don't mean for it to."