It goes like this.
It's something out of a movie really. Luke misses his train, always running late - even now nothings changed. So he's forced to take the next train scheduled which is where he sees her. He talks about how there was this instant pull. How amazing she looked just sitting there across from him. I ignore the sting in my chest that is there for most of his story and coolly tell him to move it along.
He tells me about how even though the train took him 3 blocks from where he needed to be he still rode it every single day just to see her. He gets lost in his own story, telling me about the first time they spoke, brief and nonchalant when he was forced to take the seat next to her on a particularly crowded day. He talks about taking her out on their first day, where they went, what they talked about.
He goes on about how captivating she was, almost mysterious in a way but also not at all. He tells me about her meeting his parents and two brothers, how they all got along almost instantly and often had vacations and meals together, how close she and his mom got. Somewhere along the way I stop listening. Stop listening because although I asked, although I thought I wanted to hear about it, I hadn't really thought about it.
I hadn't thought about all the good times they clearly must've had. I hadn't thought about what it would be like to hear about those times.
And so, for the sake of my own heart, my own wellbeing really, I stop listening.
"Can we maybe continue this tomorrow? It's late and I still need to put all my clothes away," I know full well I cut him off mid-sentence - something about helping an injured dog? - but truth be told I was just about ready to explode. Explode from the inside out. My chest was tight, my breathing was off and I had to stop myself from tearing up multiple times.
"Uh, sure," he replies skeptically. My backs to him, like it has been since about halfway through his story and I'm honestly worried if I turn around I might just fall apart. So I don't turn around. I fill the basket with folded clothes and head toward the elevators without a word with a nod of the head as a signal.
The elevator ride feels like ages. I can feel Luke staring and instead of making me blush and tugging on my heart strings, it makes me feel uneasy and slightly self conscious. That's when I first notice it. Notice the way I start to compare myself to the girl he held on such a high pedestal even after she broke his heart. I notice how I immediately start doubting myself in any and every way possible.
By the time I get to my apartment door I'm so far in my own head I don't even hear when Luke asks if I'm staying over.
"Lai?" His eyebrows pull tight together. "Hm?" I meet his eyes in a daze. "Are you staying over tonight?" He asks for a second time. "Oh, er, yeah, just uh, just let me put my clothes away first?" I try to sound cool and unfazed but I'm sure he sees right through it. "Are you alright?" He fixes his eyes on me, sizing me up with a look of worry. "Yeah, of course, why wouldn't I be?" I shrug stiffly.
"Lai if this is about Tara..." he trails off, surely catching the way my eyes glaze over at just him saying her name. I don't like to use her name. Using her name makes her real. Using her name makes it harder to try to pretend she's just some made up person that had zero effect on my boyfriend.
Using her name makes not thinking about her and my boyfriend a lot god damn harder.
"I knew this was a bad idea, this is why I don't talk about her. Why I didn't want to talk about her," he sighs, running a frustrated hand through his messy hair. And because I promised Ashton I'd be patient. Because really, it honestly doesn't matter now that he was mine, I set aside the aching in my heart and the doubt in my mind.
"It's fine. Really. I could care less," I shrug, taking a deep breath to clear the shakiness of my voice. "You're clearly not," he frowns. "I mean it's not the easiest thing to hear but I was the one who asked right? And I meant it when said I wanted to know," and I did. I really did want to know. At least I thought I did. "Are you sure?" Luke nips at his lip ring.
"Yes, now please stop worrying. You worry too much," my voice coming out more lighter now. He nods and just as I turn around to unlock my door in a small voice he asks, "And...we're okay?" My heart just about stops in my chest and I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding in.
Suddenly, I'm reminded of the broken boy I'm so helplessly in love with. The one who gets nervous and bites at his lip ring, the one who is terrified I'm going to decide to up and leave him at any moment, the one who needs constant reminding and reassurance that I'm not. The one who this magical girl on the train left broken and shattered.
"Yes Luke, we're more than okay," I send him a soft smile and seal the promise with a kiss.
And so what if I set aside my own worry and pain this time, for the sake of the blue eyed boy, I don't mind.
That night, when all my clothes are put away and I've talked myself out of my own head, I make my way across the hall, effortlessly slipping into bed and cuddling him a little closer, holding on just a little bit tighter.
-
The thing is, it becomes a thing. This constant nagging at the back of my mind, reminding me of the way Luke spoke about Tara with every little thing that I do. I don't just feel uneasy and self conscious either. I start to find myself second guessing every single little thing; every little thing I eat, every little thing I say or do.
It's just this constant, Tara would never eat something this unhealthy, Tara would never go out in public looking like this, Tara would never say something so stupid. And I can't help it.
I just want Luke to speak about me the way he does Tara. I want his beautiful blue eyes to light up with every word, want him to smile that bashful smile that can pass as a grin and shows his dimple. I want him to ramble on about me without even noticing, I want him to light up the whole damn room when he says my name.
I want him to love me the way he loves her.
It's stupid and absolutely ridiculous, I know this. But I find myself slowly pulling away. It's not on purpose, obviously. It's just, well, maybe I was letting the doubt consume me far more than I ever should have. From the moment I wake to the moment I sleep, it's just this constant dread that Luke doesn't, nor will he ever, feel the way he did with Tara with me.
So I do what I do best. I joke and laugh and scrub my apartment clean and rearrange the whole place at least 5 times a week and I worry. I keep it all to myself, don't let anyone into the apartment and worry.
It goes like this for weeks. For weeks and weeks, smiling at Luke, sleeping in his bed, avoiding sex, and making jokes. Lots and lots of jokes. And it's all fine. Or, well, as fine as it can get when you're on the brink of an emotional meltdown to the point where you're sure you'd burst into tears and let everything out at the mere mention of the name Tara.
-
Then it happens. Lucky for me it happens when I'm alone, Luke having just kissed me goodbye in a rush down the hallway. It's almost on cue. As soon as his feet are padding down the staircase and I've got my key in the door, I breakdown. I'm not even sure what does it or why it happens that way. I'm just so completely exhausted from keeping it in and sucking it up for his sake that it gets the better of me.
I'm tired of pretending my chest doesn't hurt or that my heart hasn't been in my stomach for the past few weeks. I'm tired of lying awake at night with Luke wrapped around me, wondering how long it'll take for him to realize it too. How long before he realizes it's not me that he wants.
And, as it goes, I begin bleaching and scrubbing and rearranging. By the time I've scrubbed every crack and craves of the old apartment and moved everything at least 15 times, I can hardly breathe - and not because of the cleaning products. I can't breathe because I can't stop crying and every time I manage to, it only lasts a few seconds before something sets me off again.
I can't breathe because I know I'm pulling away. I know I'm slowly losing the best thing to ever come out of someone moving into apartment 105 and Luke doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't seem to mind that he's losing me.
That we're losing each other.
So I cry. I cry until I have no more tears. I cry and wish for Luke. That's all I really need. I just need to have Luke wrap me up in his arms like he does when we fall asleep on my couch together that always makes me feel safe. My chest hurts and I just want Luke to tell me I'm just as important - if not more important, than stupid Tara. I want to know Luke feels the way I do about him.
I want to know that he gets butterflies every time he sees me too, I want to know that every kiss leaves him just as breathless as it does me, that every touch makes his heart skip a beat if only for a second. I want to know we're not going to end up like him and Tara did - him being Tara.
But I don't know how to tell him this because Ashton said to be patient and I'm trying, god I'm trying, but it hurts so much.
And so, with a heavy heart, for some strange, sleep-deprived reason, I take the spare key from the plant at the end of the hall, neatly line up my shoes by the door, rid myself of my clean clothes that smell far too much like me and bleach, trading them for a used one of Luke's shirts. I somehow manage to pick up around the apartment and somewhere between being exhausted and cleaning, I fall asleep on the couch.
When I wake up it's far more darker and I'm no longer in the living room but instead, safely tucked into Luke's bed. There's quiet noise of dishes clanking and the turned down volume of the television. It's ridiculous but I find myself slightly afraid to get out of bed. Slightly afraid of ruining the peacefulness of it all, ruining what I spent weeks pretending for. So I stay in bed a little longer, listening to a muffled re-run of an old How I Met Your Mother episode and the sound of what I assume is Luke doing the dishes.
He laughs along with the staged laughter and I smile to myself, my eyes feeling dried and tired from all the crying.
With a few deep breaths I count to three and get to my feet. I'm not sure what I plan on saying, if I plan on saying anything at all. Which, okay, maybe technically I have to say something because I did kind of break into his apartment only to steal one of his shirts, clean up, and pass out on his couch. As I get closer and closer to the kitchen I feel my heart start to beat faster and faster because I can't pretend now.
It hurts too much.
He glances at me, acknowledging my presence but stays quiet. I naw on the inside of my cheek, standing there sheepishly like a child about to admit to their parent that they snuck into the liquor cabinet or crashed their car.
"Are we going to talk about it now?" He asks surprisingly. "About what?" I try to pretend one last time but my voice is broken and sounds rough and raw from all the tears. Luke sighs, switching off the tv. "Your apartment has been reeking of bleach, my apartments spotless, you haven't slept in days and for some reason you've had this fake smile plastered on your face for weeks."
I don't know what to say really, I'm absolutely dumbfounded. It's around then that I realize how much I've completely underestimated Luke and how well he knows me.
"I'm assuming this has something to do with Tara?" He asks but something in his eyes say he already knows the answer. I nod my head hesitantly, feeling quite dumb if I'm being honest. This isn't me. This isn't the kind of person I am. I'm not the crazy jealous girlfriend who ruins everything for worrying too much and I'm definitely not the girl who cries over boys. I'm not even a crier. I can't even remember the last time I cried before this.
"Why didn't you just tell me?" He sounds wounded, shutting off the water and setting down the sponge. "It's fine," I shrug, my eyes casting down to the ground. "No, Lai, obviously it isn't," Luke's voice a mix between soft and frustrated. "And stop saying that it is because if it were, you wouldn't be cleaning every chance you got and you sure as hell wouldn't be wearing my dirty shirt with tear stains on your cheeks."
I stay quiet and watch his frustration slowly start to build. "You made me talk about her Laila, you were the one who said you wanted to know everything," he huffs, tugging at his neatly quiffed hair. Now, I've got the breakdown crying part out, here's where the meltdown emotional explosion comes out. "I suggested it. Jesus, Luke. How was I supposed to know how god damn perfect she was?!"
Luke's face twists at that, something of disbelief and utter confusion.
"Are you serious? Perfect?" His voice raising to match my own. "Don't say it like that, like I'm some stupid little girl with an active imagination, I watched you Luke. I watched the way you lit up and you got lost in it like you do when you play, I watched and I listened to how obviously in love with her you are and I realized I'm nowhere near there for you, but you are for me. You're everything Luke, and I'm clearly not that for you."
I can't help the tears that start to well up again and I'm honestly surprised I have any left. My heart sits heavy in my chest but I feel lighter having gotten that weight off my shoulders. I feel helpless and stupid for crying in front of him and I want to leave but I don't. I don't because I'm frozen with the look in Luke's eyes, with the way his blues are glazing over and he looks absolutely shocked; devastated.
He shakes his head with his eyebrows knitted close together, blinking at me like he's trying to process what I'm saying, what he wants to say next.
"Lai, I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I'm sorry I ever made you feel anything less than everything to me because jesus, Laila, I can't even begin to imagine my life without you. I may have loved Tara at some point, yes, and yeah we had happy times but that's not at all what our relationship was." What Ashton said comes back to me then, about Luke finding it hard to forget what she said to him and I decide then that it's not Luke's choice anymore. It's yours.
"What was it then?" I ask, with a sigh, feeling the last bit of energy leave my system. "It was hell," he says simply. I give him a look to continue because yes, vague answers were fine months ago but not anymore. Not when our relationship is where it is now. "There's no other way to spin it. She was terrible. She was a terrible person and our relationship was terrible. She could hardly stand being around me when we moved in together, she hated everything I loved...everything I was."
"She hated the fact that I loved music so much I wanted to pursue it as a living, she always said it was a dead end job and I was mediocre at best anyway. She hated me playing any instrument, she hated watching or even hearing my tv shows if I wanted to watch tv I had to have it really low or wait until she left, she hated all my weird underwear and said they were tacky and childish. Sometimes I think she even hated me. Hated the fact that she had to wake up to me every morning, had to come home to me."
My heart breaks. Absolutely shatters into a million pieces with the way his voice cracks. And I feel so stupid. So, so, so, stupid. Because here I was crying about and praising this horrible girl who crushed the boy I love and made him feel unwanted and hated.
"I don't know why I stood with her, neither of us were happy, always shouting at each other. I guess I just, I wanted to hang on to the good times you know? I really thought we could get back that some day but I was an idiot and it took me moving here to figure that out. It took me meeting you to figure that out," he says gently stepping closer and reaching for my hand.
"I know what it's like to feel second best Lai, and I hate myself for making you feel that way. I just didn't think about it. Sometimes it's hard to say what I want to say because for a solid 3 years of my life I was told what I had to say was stupid and unimportant. So I'm telling you now, you don't ever have to worry about anyone else or ever being second best because you are everything. You're everything she wasn't, everything I needed and everything I want."
"Plus you're the only one who appreciates my weird underwear collection," he adds lightheartedly with a breathy chuckle, wiping at my tears.
I give a little laugh of my own, granted it's a broken one, but still a laugh, and look up to meet those beautiful blue eyes of his. I'm trying to find the right words to say, all the right words to let him know that I'm not Tara, that I'd never be anywhere but on his side, that he doesn't ever need to keep quiet or feel unwanted, that I heard what he said and I'm sorry he ever had to go through that.
That his heart was safe with me.
"I love you," I decide, blinking away my tears and sending him a soft smile. He breaks into one of his own, letting out a breath of relief. "I love you too," he replies in a hushed voice in the quiet apartment and leans down to catch my lips with his own.
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Tada! The story of Tara. Comments and votes are always nice, I love hearing what you guys think! (: