Alone [manxman]

three:: when you catch up.

Or if he'd gotten that tattoo removed because it felt too reminiscent. I wondered if at some parts of the night, he could almost feel my fingers gliding across it, like I'd always find myself when we'd reunited on breaks.

"Why's he here?" My words were rushed, even if they were quiet. I didn't think I could handle being in the same room as him, not yet, but somehow I was supposed to be over nearly two years in only five months. I didn't think I could get over Paul, not ever, and he was just sitting there with that soft smile on his face as if it wasn't awkward the last time we'd seen each other.

I broke his heart and he still wanted to see me.

Jade looked guilty, only slightly though, she'd known what she was doing. Jade knew that I wouldn't be able to see him and she knew that she really shouldn't have invited him because now it was awkward. "Because he wanted to come?" That sounded like a lie, why would Paul have wanted to come? He was so upset at seeing me that he'd literally run away from brunch on Christmas Eve. "Honestly, I didn't think he'd show, he didn't respond to my text."

"Why would you invite him?" All I could think about when I saw him was the breakup: him crying as he ended things, promising that this was for the best. But how was it for the best when my heart still hadn't stopped hurting? Taking a shaky breath, I tried not to recall it again.

Jade didn't stop to take into consideration just how much this hurt, was this some sort of revenge for something I'd done to her? Was she trying to hurt me? Every logical thought had fled my mind and I was stuck in my revolving door of self-pity and pain, "because he misses you." She'd spoken up and that sounded like bullshit. At my eye roll, my sister had smacked her teeth, that action exposed the fresh frenulum piercing under her top lip, "and you miss him."

My sister was seventeen now and since turning seventeen only two days prior to my arrival, she'd surely been acting more mature. That and she'd been giving me unsolicited advice on my relationships as if her being the same age I was when I met Paul suddenly meant something. I wanted to acknowledge that just because her and Caspar were better didn't mean that she could fix this. She thought understood everything about us.

But she didn't, she didn't know anything about us and it was annoying me that she didn't seem to care. Then I wondered if I even wanted her to understand because the simple fact that I couldn't even look at the guy I was in love with was too embarrassingly depressing. Maybe the fact that we'd both had issues was the real breaking point, maybe normal relationships could withstand trauma and Paul and I just weren't strong enough.

That had me rethinking everything and Jade was putting me through more introspection than any therapist I'd ever had.

"What the hell, Jade?" My voice had raised at her a bit then and I felt slightly bad at the way she went on the defense. My outburst had caught her by surprise, her face dropping into a scowl, lips downturned curtly.

She wasn't giving up though, her stance squaring and eyes narrowing. "You came back to see him," she insisted, arms crossed to mimic mine.

"I came back for you."

I wasn't sure why her saying these things made me feel so exposed. I didn't come back for Paul, I came back for my sister but I knew something about her words were true, "you can't tell me that not one part of you was hoping to see Paul." She was right, I knew she was, it just pissed me off how right she was and how I couldn't even lie to myself. I was a mess without him and even if I'd come to terms with it, I knew that I intended on seeing him at some point during this trip. "You've been broken up for months now and you're not even talking to anyone. You miss him."

Even with my chest constricting and my heart pounding a million miles a minute, I still wanted to see him. "You don't know anything."

"I know that you still love him." She was right. "I know that meaningless sex does nothing because at the end of the day, you're still alone." I'd been preparing to shut her out, my words were lingering on the tip of my tongue, something spiteful enough to sting when her eyes dropped from mine.