Eight Mortal Secrets [Hetalia Drabbles] (Completed, to be Edited)

CXXVII. Empty

America could only think of a few times where he had been this miserable, but never in his entire history could he think of an instant where an 18 year old mortal girl had had this much of an impact on him.

The truth was, he missed Shelby. Dearly. He missed laying out in the sun with her while she read Harry Potter. He missed dancing around the house with her, singing Hamilton. He missed taking walks with her and their dog, Apollo. He even missed the cons of being with Shelby- he missed putting in the effort to make her feel better on her bad days, making her smile when she's stressed or feeling down. Vise versa, when something went wrong with his country, Shelby was always there to support him and promised that while something seemed bad, and while it still needed to be fixed, there was always a country that had it much worse, and that America was the greatest country in the world.

Shelby Ferrell believed with all her heart that the United States of America was the best country that had ever flourished on the earth. And Alfred broke up with her.

In the moment, it had seemed appropriate. He was misinformed, but he didn't know he had been, which made his argument valid from his perspective. Alfred thought he was being used as a facade in Shelby's web of lies. Of all the people who have lied to him in the past, he wasn't expecting her, someone he was so attached to that he was willing to risk it all for both of them to be together, to have lied to him and used him.

So he broke up with her. He tried to remove her from his life and forget. And it was literally impossible.

First of all, every time he went to a world meeting, he had to come face to face with Poland. At first, they were both just angry with each other- Alfred blamed Feliks for unmasking the whole situation to him (America was so miserable at some points he almost wished he had just continued to be blissfully ignorant), and Feliks blamed Alfred for completely removing Shelby from his life. Only recently had she started coming around the countries again, and she blatantly ignored both Alfred and Feliks, because she felt Poland was somewhat responsible for the breakup, for telling Alfred that Shelby was greysexual without her permission, and without even explaining it to her clueless counterpart. Now, however, even though they still don't speak to each other, America and Poland take solace in the fact that both of them are miserable.

Second, the other mortal girls were a constant reminder of his loss, especially Hope and Dreamz. Hope, Canada, and even Russia the majority of the time, were responsible for taking care of Apollo now, and while Hope loved having a dog around, she wasn't particularly happy with having a miserable dog around. Dreamz, someone who Shelby confided everything in, was not happy with the reason Alfred broke it off with Shelby.

In fact, Dreamz was the person who pretty much explained the whole greysexuality thing to him. First, she gave him a sharp slap upside the head for believing idiots on the Internet. Second, she went into sexuality as a spectrum. She explained that people could like people of the opposite sex, same sex, or both, or any combination of the genders or lack of that people identified with. After Alfred understood that, Dreamz explained that there was a smaller population of people who don't feel attracted to anyone, or asexuals. However, there are a lot of different types of asexuality behinds being flat out asexual, and these were all collectively under the ace umbrella. Greysexuality was somewhere in between asexuality and sexuality, where someone rarely feels sexual attraction, and if they do, it doesn't happen often. Dreamz explained that while someone like Shelby could be attracted to girls, Shelby personally identifies as greysexual, heteroromantic, meaning the people she is attracted to are men.

So then, Alfred completely felt like a jackass. What kept him from apologizing to her and trying to scrape their relationship back together was simply the fact that by the time he had understood the situation and realized his mistake, it was already April. Shelby and he had all ready been split up for almost three months, and he figured it was just for the best to let her live her life and move on. She was entering adulthood, with college over the horizon, graduation from high school barreling towards her. It scared Alfred. He had missed three months of her life- how many seconds? Seconds were precious with her, and he threw three months worth away. Ashamed and upset with himself, he decided it was too late.

Little did he know that Shelby did not feel the same way. Shelby had needed Alfred's support in her last crucial months of high school. She needed the stress relieving presence of Alfred and Apollo. She had planned her graduation around having an extra ticket for Alfred to attend, and she had planned on taking him to her prom. She was not over him at all, in fact, she still loved him.

But he had not realized until yesterday.

It was his birthday, but it had definitely been affected by his mood. It wasn't as big as last year's. He invited his family and  friends to a beach for a barbecue. It wasn't unenjoyable, but there was this emptiness looming over him. He had managed to push it back for a while. It was a bit easier with so many people coming up to him and greeting him and giving him presents.

Until one family member.

"Hey bud." A husky voice said, and Alfred turned around to face an vaguely familiar individual. He about 3 inches taller than America, and held himself erect, his shoulder slightly broader than an average man's, and toned, but not overly muscular. He had tawny brown skin with dark hazel green eyes and a head of closely trimmed, curly brown hair, and he seemed to regard America with a slight distain.

Alfred raised a brow, frowning slightly. "Hey, I, uh, I don't quite know who..."

"I figured. I'm Michigan. Like, the real one." He answered.

Alfred's eyes widened. "Lansing?"

"Lance." Michigan corrected, waving his actual name away.

Alfred watched him skeptically. "You said the real one. Do you... Know about-"

"Shelby? Yep." Lance stated casually. When Alfred's eyes widened in complete panic, Lance stepped forward and lowered his voice. "Don't worry. I'm keeping her secret. I haven't even seen England, and I did, I wouldn't speak to him. I've met Shelby, and she's explained everything to me."

Alfred relaxed slightly. "How is she?"

"Honestly? She's in pretty bad shape. Considering she's still completely in love with you." Lance explained. "You don't look too good either."

"What? I'm great! It's my freaking birthday for Christ's sake. I've never been happier!" Alfred laughed.

Michigan looked unimpressed. "I've seen you way happier over the time I've known you. You're smiling, but you're eyes are empty, just like her's were."

Alfred shook his head. "That's way too deep for me, dude. I don't roll like that."

Michigan looked him up and down, before nodding. "A'ight. I can see you've convinced yourself. I'm gonna get going before anyone here recognizes me. If you see Illinois, tell her I said hey." Lance instructed, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his cameo hoodie and turning around.

Alfred frowned, walking quickly after him and grabbing his shoulder. "Lance, wait." The state turned around, raising his brow knowingly. "Did... Shelby really tell you she was still in love with me?"

"She really did." Michigan promised.

"Do you... Think she'd want to see me?"

"I think it's pretty likely. But you got a lot of apologizing to do." Michigan patted his brother on the shoulder, smiling. "Happy birthday, dude."

Alfred stared after Lance as he slipped through the crowd, his head down to keep himself from being noticed. Alfred took out his phone, and sent a text.

Hey, happy 4th!

Happy birthday.

Thanks!
But, tbh, on a serious note, I think we need to talk.
I got a lot of stuff to apologize for

Oh
Okay.