Too Sweet To Last

White Houses

I was all set and moved into my new house two days later, although boxes were still spread out through the house.

Jason called me today and told that he was coming home and couldn’t wait to see me. I think that if he knew what he had coming, he would definitely stay with Kathy instead of driving all the way back.

I drove with Emma back to our old house, to break up with Jason. I felt a knot form in my stomach, but it didn’t faze me one bit. I have been waiting for a while to be able to leave Jason, now was my time.

I opened the door of the familiar house that had given me so many memories.

“When will he be home?” I asked Austin.

“Any minute,” he replies.

“Emma, say hi to your Uncle Austin!” I exclaim, picking up her teeny tiny hand and making her wave.

“Almost your Uncle Dad!” he says with a laugh.

I burst out laughing and can’t stop. It’s not even that funny, but Austin brings out my embarrassing laugh in me.

“Shit, he’s home!” Austin yelled.

“Not in front of Emma!” I say, shooting him a look.

“Leah, she has no idea what I just said and who even cares right now? My brother is home.”

On cue, Jason walks through the door, seeming excited to see Emma and me again.

“Jason, there is something that I have to tell you,” I say, shifting Emma over to Austin, just in case.

“What, what’s going on?” he asked, looking worried.

“Jason, I am leaving you. I already moved out,” I inform him, keeping my head held high.

“What? Why? What did I do?”

“I just don’t think that it’s working out between the two of us and you aren’t ready to be a father yet.”

“What the fuck Leah? So you were just pretending this entire time?” Jason shouts, really really loudly. Emma starts to cry.

I burst out into tears, my voice cracking. “Not the entire time, Jason. I really did love you.”

“That’s another lie!” Jason shrieked. “I never thought that you would turn on me, but instead you go behind my back while I leave back home and move out on me! That’s so low Leah, even for you.”

“I tried to work things out with you,” I sniffled. “I told you what you could change about yourself to make things easier but you didn’t.”

Jason changes personalities completely. “Okay, I’m sorry Leah. I will work things out, but can’t you just give me another chance?”

I shake my head, tears sliding down my face, and I slide my engagement ring off of my finger and place it in his hand. “I’m sorry, Jason. I don't want to do this shit anymore. I love Emma more than I love you.”

I take Emma back from Austin and start for the door.

“Do I still get to see Emma?” Jason calls after me.

I turn around for a split second. “Go to rehab and then we’ll talk.”

I walk out the door, get Emma settled into her car seat, and get into the car myself.

I drive away and don’t look back. There is no way I can start over fresh if I keep looking at where I have been.

My experience moving in with Jason can be described in one song that quickly became my favorite: White Houses by Vanessa Carlton. It’s such a gorgeous song and it describes all of my feelings that I had bundled inside of me during that time.

The first verse reminds me of the beginning of this journey:

Crashed on the floor when I moved in, this little bungalow with some strange new friends. Stay up too late and I’m too thin. We promise each other it’s till the end. Now we’re spinning empty bottles, it’s the five of us, with pretty eyed boys girls die to trust. I can’t resist the day; no I can’t resist the day.

That beginning of the song represents that it’s my first time living on my own, not to mention to other boys that I had a relationship with. I was still too naïve. I was just ecstatic to be there with them.

The next verse describes the time when I allowed my insecurities to begin showing through:

Jenny screams out and it’s no pose, cause when she dances she goes and goes. Beer through the nose on an inside joke, and I’m so excited I haven’t spoken. And she’s so pretty and she’s so sure, maybe I’m more clever than a girl like her. Summer’s all in bloom. Summer is ending soon.

It totally explains how I wanted to be better than every single girl out there to Jason, but I was scared of the competition.

This next verse hits my situation perfectly:

It’s alright and it’s nice not to be so alone. But I hold on to your secrets in white houses. Maybe I’m a little bit over my head; I come undone at the things he said. And he’s so funny in his bright red shirt. We were all in love and we all got hurt. I sneak into his car’s cracked leather seats, the smell of gasoline in the summer heat. Boy, we’re going way too fast. It’s all too sweet to last.

When she sings that it’s all too sweet to last, it hits home to me every single time. I flash back to the beginning when Jason would say the sweetest things to me and make me feel amazing, and I believed him. And we were all in love and we all got hurt. I don’t think a single one of the three of us walked away without one single wound.

When she sings it’s alright and I put myself in his hands, and I hold on to your secrets in white houses. Love, or something ignites in my veins. And I pray it never fades into white houses. It talks about me having doubts about Jason but I decide to trust him anyways and I fall in love.

My first time, hard to explain. Rush of blood, oh and a little bit of pain. On a cloudy day, it’s more common than you think. He’s my first mistake. Jason was the one that I lost my virginity to. It wasn’t all perfect love like people imagine it to be though, and after a while I realize that it was a mistake.

Maybe you were all faster than me; we gave each other up so easily. These silly little wounds will never mend. I feel so far from where I’ve been so I go, and I will not be back here again. I’m gone as the day is fading on white houses. I lied, wrote my injuries all in the dust. In my heart it’s the five of us in white houses. This describes how the friendships that I believed were going to last me a lifetime didn’t. The things that my friends did to me back then still hurt. I decide to be strong and leave, but that doesn’t mean that I still don’t miss the old times that we had together.

The final verse is the final thought of my situation. And you, maybe you’ll remember me. What I gave is yours to keep in white houses. I hope that Jason remembers that he took something so extraordinary from me. The part of me that I handed over to Jason will always be his to keep, and in my heart I still want him to remember me.

White Houses by Vanessa Carlton describes the year that I lived while I was nineteen years old, and partly twenty. It tells my story in a few minutes. It feels great to have a song to relate to.

The song brings a few tears to my eyes as I sit in my new house after breaking up with Jason. It was really over.