Heart Strings ((one-shot))

Heart Strings [[ THH one-shot contest ]]

This is for The heartbroken Heartbreaker one-shot contest. I just want @hepburnettes and @SamMadison to know I finished the last five chapter of THH and the last two chapters of Breakup Formula at the same time and I cried the whole time. It felt like my heart was broken.

We all watched Seth's retreating figure as he walked to board his plane. My eyes teared up as I watched one of my closest friends walk away.

"Seth!" I called after him. "I swear if you don't come back in the next ten years, I will chain your balls to a tree."

My threat broke some of the sad tension as we all laughed. People looked at us, but we could care less.

< > < > < >

Four years later I sat in my room. We would soon be going to Warren's house to barbecue. My eyes scanned over all the pictures of us around my room.

Some were just Kyla, Lily, Hale and I; others were of us all, and quite a few were Warren and I.

I picked up a framed picture of Warren and I at the beach in the summer. It was a candid shot probably taken by Justin. He was a sucker for love, though he never told anybody.

In the picture, Justin was holding me by the waist and swinging me in a circle with an adoring look in his eyes. Sand was in a flurry around us because of a light breeze. My hair was flowing out around me because of this breeze and Warren swinging me around. I could practically hear my laughter ringing through the air.

A sudden feeling of intense nostalgia passed through me, reminding me how much I still loved Warren. I longed for the days when he loved me too. Instead, he had a girlfriend named Hillary that everyone believed he was in love with.

A knock sounded on my door before it was violently pulled open to reveal my girlfriends. Lily, Kyla, and Hale fought to get into my room like monkeys and ended up in the floor, all looking at me with the same smile. Lily was the first to notice my sad demeanor. Her smile twisted into a frown.

"What's wrong, Aly?"

Kyla snatched the picture out of her hand and a looked at it. A few emotions flittered across her face before she said, "she's in love."

I sat on my bed with a huff.

"What gave it away?" I asked with a tone if sarcasm and bitterness.

"Because I know how you feel," Kyla began, sitting next to me. She was soon followed by the others. "You'll never stop loving Warren, but eventually it will become a different kind of love. You will learn to accept it."

"Is that what it's like with you and Seth?"

"No." She paused, thinking. "But it is what it's like for Cedric and I. I'm still trying to move on from Seth. I'm trying to find that equilibrium so that I can love him without the pain of not having him here. You know? It's like forgiving, but not forgetting; just remembering, but not reminiscing."

I understand what she means. She doesn't want me to reminisce, because that brings longing. I fear, though, I may never get over Warren. It's been years and I'm still madly in love with him. If it wasn't meant to be, wouldn't these feelings have gone away by now?

Instead of speaking these feelings I just not and say, "let's go."

They smile sadly, but they can tell the conversation is over.

< > < > < >

I walk with the girls into Warren's house. Everyone else, which only consists of Dan, Warren, and Justin, sent a text when they arrived. Warren also said he had a surprise.