SO SORRY FOR THE WEIRD ASTERISKS, I WAS WRITING ON MY TABLET FOR ONCE AND THE APP I USED HAD WEIRD FORMATTING. **THIS** IS BOLD AND *THIS* IS ITALICS. Thank you for your patience. :)
**Title: "I'm Sorry."**
**Pairing: Merome**
**Genre: I suppose it would be angst?**
**Song: "I Almost Do" by Taylor Swift**
**Dedicated to ThatsMyCueToLeave (assuming I can figure out how to dedicate on mobile wattpad) for reminding me to update. :) I might put up a longer one later, but don't count on it. If you guys are up for some 'might-as-well-be-skylox' fanfiction, though, I would suggest checking out my *Remind Me* series that I'm trying to focus on.**
**Word Count: 536**
"No, no, no," Jerome laughed in a not-at-all-happy kind of way. It was enough to make Mitch look away, swallowing hard because of what he knew was about to come. "I don't think so, buddy," the other boy continued in a normal voice, and Mitch winced because now, instead of remembering fun rounds of the Hunger Deans, he'd be thinking back to *this* moment every time he heard that nickname, that word. He closed his eyes for a moment, but then he opened them because even the conversation he was being forced to have would be better than the suffocating, guilty silence in his head.
"Jerome-" he choked out, daring to glance up at who was surely, by now, his ex-boyfriend.
His ex-boyfriend - because, yes, by then, that is what he was - scoffed as if anger was his only emotion, and Mitch was kind enough not to point out the tear streaks that were running trails down his face and proving that anger was only part of the equation. "Don't act like you're sorry!" Jerome shouted, quickly wiping a hand across his eyes to dry them.
Mitch, to keep himself from drying Jerome's tears for him, gathered the ends of his sleeves into balls of fabric that he clenched within his fists. He swallowed again. "I *am* sorry!" And Jerome tried to believe him and then hated himself for not being that gullible.
"Mitch," he said, and he also hated himself for having a voice that cracked when he just wanted things to be okay again, "Mitch, you've *said* that before." His voice dropped to a whisper as he sank into a nearby chair, too drained to simultaneously argue and stand. "You've said that *so many times* before..."
"And I've meant it every single time," Mitch insisted as he fought to keep his voice from cracking like Jerome's had. "Just like I mean it now. Please, Jerome, just give me another chance."
"Oh, because I haven't given you enough chances as it is?" Jerome asked sarcastically, and Mitch sighed as though it was Jerome's fault just because he didn't think he could bear to acknowledge it as his own. It wasn't Mitch's fault that Jerome cried so often, was it? It wasn't Mitch's fault that Jerome had to give out so many chances. Right? It couldn't be Mitch's fault, because Mitch hated hurting his biggums almost as much as he hated himself every time he *did* hurt his biggums.
Oh.
"No, you- you *have,* you've given me *plenty* of chances, I just- please, I need another."
"Do you *deserve* another?"
He was silent for a few moments. But then- "No. I don't." The silence continued.
Jerome swallowed loudly before sniffling and saying in a voice barely audible, "I wish you'd said something else."
"... Would you have believed me if I had?"
Jerome sniffed again, took a moment to consider it. "No. But I wish I could have."
"So do I." Suffocating silence fell across the room, and Mitch wondered if Jerome felt the pressure, too. After a while, he added quietly, "I'm sorry." He played with the ends of his sleeves.
And Jerome said, "Yeah. I am, too," and forced himself to leave.