"So how did you guys meet, exactly?"
We're sitting in a quiet place we, miraculously, found at the venue in Miami. No one has found us, yet, which is something that's almost a miracle with and in itself.
Raleigh had left this afternoon. Popstar and her had gone out to lunch together (so much for her saying me and her should go out to lunch and go shopping together last night), and then he'd helped her pack (which was basically the equivalent of him half asleep on her bed, and her packing her stuff), before driving with her to the airport, and saying goodbye at the gate.
How he and his security team had managed to do all of this without him getting mauled was a wonder to me.
Then he'd come back to the venue, immediately finding me to console him, and we'd escaped to find a place to talk. To listen. To just be, for once, in this madness that had been our day.
He had already completed both sound check and VIP Meet & Greets earlier today, having moved around some important stuff so he would have enough time to say goodbye to her. Because it was all about her.
He shrugged, rubbing at his eyes, clearly tired. I was tired myself, and I wasn't the one who was running around to this radio station and that business, promoting, and meeting fans outside the hotel early in the morning and late into the night, and doing sound check and Meet & Greets and dance rehearsals, and everything else that came with it. I couldn't imagine how he did it. I couldn't imagine how tired he was.
He laid his head against my shoulder, and I offered him my cardigan, something I had immediately shrugged off upon getting out of the SUV which had driven us here earlier this morning. It was ridiculously hot in Miami, and I knew I wasn't going to need it.
He wrapped it up, laying it underneath his head. "We've been dating for a long time. Our four year anniversary is right around the corner. I feel like we're practically married by now. I mean, four years is a fucking long time for anyone in a relationship, but especially for two people who are only eighteen - who were just over, just only, fourteen when we started dating."
I nodded, agreeing.
"And we met at an event of mine. We were both only fourteen at the time, so I was just getting started. We were doing all this press at a hotel - in one of the biggest conference rooms they had available. You basically go around and promote yourself on all these different little radio stations that are there, so you can get the word out about yourself. It was in California. She was there with her parents for a vacation, and was just being generally nosy, something I'm sure you saw about her when she was here. So she's snooping through all these different hotel conference rooms, and the hotel in general, and I'm walking out to find a bathroom."
"I hit her in the face with the door. And I swear to god, it was horrible. She just starts gushing blood, and she's talking about how she's really sensitive, and she just got into a minor car accident with her parents a couple of weeks ago, and she broke her nose, and this can't be happening again."
"So I'm basically freaking out, because I hit this absolutely gorgeous girl in the face, and I keep telling her I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, and I give her my jacket to try and stop the blood with while we go find like, her parents, or my Mom, or my management, or something or someone to take us to the ER."
"So by the time we finally find someone, and we're getting into the car to take her to the ER, we're holding hands. And she asks me to come with her. And I can't say no. it's not like I can say no. I was the one who caused her in the injury in the first place."
"So I don't say no. I go with her, and I sit with her in the ER for two hours before they're finally ready for her. And I sit next to her and hold her hand; through the entire process of them cleaning her up, and stitching it up because her nose was still super sensitive, and I'd broke the previous stitches when I'd slammed the door into her face."
"And I don't let go of her hand no matter how hard she squeezes my hand, and I wipe her tears away when they're done, and laugh when she picks the Winnie the Pooh Bear sticker they offer her for being so brave."
"And we exchanged numbers, and promised each other we would call or text each other in that week we would both be at the same hotel. And my Mom is egging me on, and her parents are egging her on, the entire week for us to hangout. And we do. And it's perfect, and she's perfect, and it's amazing, and she, herself, is amazing, too. And I thought that was all it was going to be. Some cute little fourteen year old deal we had for a week, something too cliché and predictable to ever go anywhere else."
"But once I leave, she keeps texting me. And she keeps calling me, no matter where I go on the road, no matter what time it is, no matter how tired she is, or how much homework she has to do, or how many friends she blows off to talk to me, just to get a simple phone call from me."
"And I liked that, at fourteen. I liked a girl who cared about me, and wanted to talk to me, and be with me, and even though she couldn't, she didn't reject me. She didn't push me away. She simply pulled me closer, saying there was absolutely nothing wrong with living my dream, and she admired me even moreso for doing it, for having the guts to go after what I wanted, no matter what anyone else said about me, or my dream I was chasing."
"And pretty soon, we were really comfortable with each other. We sheltered each other. We protected each other, no matter what. And it was like; pretty soon, there wasn't any other option. We had each other. I've never really been in love with her, but I love her. I love her so much. And she's given up so much for me."
"She's taken days off of school during high school to fly out and see me on tour when I couldn't come and see her. She's stayed up late at night, waiting for my shows to be done, no matter where I am, waiting for my phone call, asking about her day, and how she is, and how her parents and her little sister is; how everything is going."
"And at the end of the phone call, she'd say she had absolutely, irrevocably fallen in love with me. And I told her the same, because I thought I had, too. She was my perfect girl. And I thought that was what I needed. I thought I needed that perfection. I've been in love with something that shouldn't be real. That isn't really real, for all this time. And I'd never really looked at anyone else like I looked at her, because she was perfect to me. She was perfect for me. She was amazing."
"And during Christmas break, she flew out to Atlanta to see me, and I took her out on a date - we went out and got hot chocolate from Starbucks, extra whipped cream for her, always needing more. And then we went to the movies, and she let me put my arm around her, and pull her close, and I swear, right then and there, I thought I was in heaven. I thought she was my heaven. And we went out to eat at the fanciest, prettiest restaurant I could possibly find, knowing I needed to impress her, because I needed to keep her. She was absolute perfection. She was my dream girl."
"And I took her back to her hotel, where she was staying with her Mom, because she couldn't be a bad girl and stay with me. It was too dangerous. It was wild. It wasn't safe; looked down upon. I took her back to her hotel, and I kissed her, standing outside of her and her Mom's suite, the Christmas lights strung all over the hotel hallways shining, illuminating, us. And I thought that was it. I thought she was my one, at stupid, naïve little fourteen."
"She was, and she still is, my security blanket. And I'm her security blanket, too. She protects me when I cannot protect myself, and I defend and stand up and protect her, when she is too scared to do it on her own. When she cannot do it on her own. When she is not fearless enough, brave enough, strong enough, to do it on her own."
"That's something I admire about you. Did you know that? You're so fearless, and brave, and you don't need someone to help you when you've tangled yourself into a sticky situation. You can defend yourself all on your own. You're completely independent, and she's ridiculously co-dependent. I like that you don't need someone, but you want someone to share it with."
"You want someone to ask for help, even though you, and that other person, both know you don't need it, haven't needed it, and never will need their help. I like that you want someone, but you don't need someone, like Raleigh does."
"But I thought I was in love with her, when I kissed her. So I told her, with the Christmas lights twinkling and sparking overhead, her standing flawlessly, perfectly in front of me, the smell and taste of delicious mint and Starbucks hot chocolate on my lips. I told her I was in love with her, and I would always be in love with her, and she repeated the same to me. I thought she was my perfect girl."
"At stupid, naïve, completely innocent fourteen years old, I thought I had found my perfection. I thought I had found the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and I was so lucky. I was so happy. I had found my one; I had found my soul mate. But I didn't stop myself."
"I didn't try to stop myself and realize that she didn't make my heart spark from within my soul. She didn't drive me absolutely wild. She doesn't make me absolutely, infuriatingly dizzy. She doesn't drive me to be a bigger, better, stronger, happier person."
"She is perfection, but she is not my perfection. She is not who I need to spend the rest of my life with. I always thought she was my perfect girl. I always thought the girl who you had always imaged yourself to be with was supposed to come along one day, and you would meet her, and fall hopelessly, ridiculously, in love with her. And I'm only now realizing that that is not how it is supposed to be. That was never how it was supposed to be."
"But I want to give that to her. I wish I was the guy for her. I wish I was her soul mate. I still want to make her happy, even though I'm not in love with her. Even though I've never been in love with her. I wish I could make her happy. I wish I could be what made her heart pound, and her stomach twist with excitement each time she saw me, thought about me, was with me. I wish I could do and be all of those things for her, but I can't."
"Because she doesn't make me happy like I know she should, and I know I don't make her happy enough, even though I try. I'm not in love with her, but that doesn't mean I don't love her. It doesn't mean I don't wish I was in love with her, I wish I could give her everything she wants and needs in a guy."
"She thinks I'm the perfect person for her, that I'm her soul mate. Or she wants me to be that perfect person. She wishes I was her soul mate. She wishes I would believe that I was her soul mate, and she was mine. She knows I'm not her soul mate, though. She knows we aren't going to last for forever, and she knows that I know that she knows, and she knows that I know, too. She just doesn't want to give up. Because giving up, to her, is like failing. And she can't fail. She's the clear and utter and only definition of human perfectionism."
"And I used to try my damn hardest at first, because I had to be everything for her. I had to fill all the gaps and holes she couldn't fill herself. I had to match her in her perfection. I had to be on the same level as her, always on the same level, no matter what. I had to do and be what I never thought I could, because I was her one. I was her soul mate."
"We couldn't get into fights. We were perfect. We couldn't disagree - because soul mates don't disagree on anything. I thought I was doing everything wrong if I ever made her cry, or if I made her upset, or if she hung up on me sometimes. And then I started realizing what the issue was. I was realizing that I was trying so hard to be something I never was, and never could be, and never could make myself."
"And I know why, now. I know why I couldn't be everything she wanted. Because she is not everything I want, and she never can be, no matter how hard she tries, either. I wish I could give her everything she wants. But I can't. I just...I can't, because we don't fit. We're not right, no matter how hard we try. It's utterly pointless, and it will never change"
"But I don't think she realizes that. I don't think she realizes that I am not that perfect person, because that isn't possible. The person you find isn't perfect for you, because that perfect person isn't really supposed to exist. You're supposed to meet this incredible, wild, stunning girl who makes your heart go wild and makes your head spin, and makes you think of no one else, makes you want to do nothing else but be with her."
"You just want to be with her, for always and forever, and you would change your entire life just to be with her. You would change your entire life just to have her, to hold her, to kiss her, to make her yours, and yours only, for the rest of eternity."
"I didn't realize that until now. They're supposed to take your definition, and your images of your perfect soul mate, and flip them upside down, change them until they're satisfied and happy with the way they are - something different. Something right for you, because they know you inside and out, and you felt like they've always known you inside and out, always known you, even if you've only just met them a couple of seconds ago, and they know that your idea of your perfect person is so horribly, ridiculously wrong."
"And I get none of that with Raleigh. I get nothing close to that. And I thought that was how it was supposed to be. I thought the people that wrote about that, and talked about it, and drew it, and loved it, and obsessed over it were all just liars. I thought it was just some stupid little lie people made to make themselves feel better. To drive themselves absolutely crazy trying to find that person who made them feel that way."
"I thought they were just kidding when they said whenever they are with that person, the person they are meant to be with, and they know it, their heart goes mad, and it feels like their heart is just going to jump out of their chest, it's pounding so hard, and they're sweating, and they can't breathe, they can't breathe, and it's single-handedly the best feeling they've ever felt in the entire world."
"They feel like their life has just been made complete, and they can die, right then and there, and they'll be absolutely fine, because they're in love with her. They're perfectly, incandescently in love with her, and that's all they need to die-they just need to realize what true love is, and find the girl that makes them feel that way, because it's better than adrenaline."
"And they feel like they just can't breathe, because she's standing right there, or they're holding her hand, or kissing her, or just being with her. They can't breathe, because they can't believe it. They can't believe this is real, and this is happening."
"I never got any of that with Raleigh, and I'm realizing what the movies and the books and the songs and everyone else has said is real. They're not faking it. It's real, and it's because of you that I've realized this. You make my heart go mad. You make me dizzy. You make me go wild. You make me want to sneak out late at night, even though my girlfriend could potentially come upstairs, in search of my room, in search of me, just so I can hold you. Just so I can talk to you."
"You make me want to be with you all the time, and I swear to god, I fell in love with you the moment I saw you."
I can't help but grin softly at him, unable to resist. I can't keep quit. I can't keep my thoughts to myself until the end, until he's done saying everything he feels and has been through, and everything about them, because he is adorable. He is amazing. And I can't help myself.
"Raleigh is my security blanket, and I am hers. We are comfortable around each other, and I think that's why we've never broken up. I think that's why we stay together, even though I know, and I think she knows, too, but won't admit it to me, will never admit it to me, that we do not belong together. We are perfect together, but we are not in love with each other. We love each other, but we are not in love, and that makes all the difference."
"We did not clash. We did not tangle. We did not fall together. We did not fall quickly; we did not fall hard, we did not fall fast. It was neat and clean and slow, and that is not how love is supposed to be. That is not how you are supposed to love."
"You are supposed to put you all, your absolute everything, risking everything you own, and everything you have, and everything you don't own, and everything you don't have, for love. You are supposed to give it all, and we didn't. We didn't give anything."
"But we are comfortable together. We love each other, and we protect, and treasure each other. We are safe, with the other. We always have another - we don't have to worry about anything, worry about crushes or relationships or other side feelings, because we are safe together. We have a mutual respect, and mutual understanding, of one another, because we've been together for practically forever. It's safe, and in her mind, it's perfect. She cannot bear to ruin absolute perfection."
"So somehow, someway, I am going to have to do it for her, because I cannot do this any longer. And we both know it. It's simply a matter of who can break up apart. We can rip our unmatched puzzle pieces from each other. Because they never fit, and they never will fit, either. We've jammed them together, forced them to be with each other, because it's simple, and it's effortless, and it requires no fighting. I did not have to fight for her love. I did not have to run after her, again and again. I did not have to convince her to be with me, convince her to love me. We just did. And I'm sick of that."
"I want to clash and spin and tangle, and become so dizzyingly, so fervently, so irrevocably in love with someone, I can't possibly bear to be without them."
He sighs, looking over at me; his cheeks flushed a light pink, lips pouted.
And I want to kiss him, right then and there, as he looks up at me with those innocent, serious, heartbroken, big, dark chocolate brown eyes that drive the world mad.
I want to tell him that I can be that girl. That I am that girl, who can make his head spin, and his heart go absolutely mad. I want to tell him that I want to be with him, and never want to be without him.
But he's so heartbroken over Raleigh. He doesn't know what to do about, or for Raleigh. So I am responsible. I am patient. I am quiet. I am not wild. I am not free. I am not spontaneous. I am not ambitious. I am not crazy. I reign myself in, because he needs me to be serious. He needs me to be compassionate, and sympathetic, and understanding.
So I do not let myself kiss him. I do not let myself flirt with him. I do not let myself flirtatiously touch him. I do not let myself reach out to him, or want him, or need him. I am calm. I am sincere. I am heartfelt, because I know he does not need Party Carson right now. He does not need Wild Carson right now.
He needs Serious Carson, and Calm Carson, and what he wants, I will always give him, no matter how much it hurts my desires. No matter how many times I have to tell my heart to stop rapidly beating against my chest. No matter how many times I have to tell my brain to calm down, to be quiet, and to be still.
I let him lay his head on my lap, and I comb my fingers through his hair, trying to find something, anything, to say to calm him down. To reassure him that everything will be okay. That he doesn't need her, because he has me, but yet, not in those words. Because I know it will make him feel even worse about himself, and her, and their broken, mismatched, unlovable, unloved, relationship.
I'm starting to think he's falling asleep, something which I do not blame whatsoever for, what with going back and forth all the time, and only get five or six hours every night. But then he says something quietly, softly, and I have to lean closer than I already am to him to hear. I brush his silky, honey blond locks away from his face, unable to be unaffectionate towards him. I have to give the very least to him in order to even be able to restrain the most of my affections, and my feelings, towards him.
"That's you, you know," he whispers softly, almost as if he is terrified I will hear, yet stubborn in the fact that I hear him all the same.
I cock my head, confused, too tired, and worn down, and sleepy to play connect the dots with him. "What, popstar?" I ask, drumming my fingers softly, subconsciously, against his spine, something which will put him to sleep, I am sure, in only a few minutes.
"I was describing you. When I was talking about the girl I needed, the girl who was so different, so better, so much more worldly, and passionate, and wild, and strong, and courageous than Raleigh. That girl is you. The girl that I want is you. And you don't have to say anything, because I know I can't have you. And it honestly breaks my heart."
"It breaks my heart, and it breaks my soul apart, because I cannot have you, but I want you, I need you, before someone else comes along and takes you from right underneath my nose, because I didn't move fast enough. I didn't love hard enough. I didn't push Raleigh far enough away. You don't have to say anything, because I know there is nothing either of us can say to make any of this better, and that's my fault. It's not your fault, and I never want you to believe that it is your fault."
"If I didn't have Raleigh, and I hadn't had Raleigh for such a long time, we would be dating right now. And it drives my mind wild. It makes my heart go crazy. I just wanna be with you. That's all I want. Just to be with you, and I can't, and I hate talking about it, because it's all I feel, and because it's all I feel, in essence, it's all that I think about."
"It plagues my mind, again and again, hour after hour, each love song I sing onstage. I want them all to be for you. I want the lyrics to be heartfelt; I want them to come from my soul, inspired by you."
"I am falling in love with you, and I can do nothing to stop it. And if you're falling in love with me, too, please don't do anything, don't think anything, don't feel anything, to make yourself stop. Because I promise I am going to get this all figured out. And we will be together, god damnit, I promise we will be."
"I will do anything; say anything, to get out of this...this...painfully simple, painfully easy relationship with Raleigh. Because I want wild, and I want crazy, and I want party girl, and advice-giver. And I want the super intelligent girl. I want the ambitious, the fearless, the brave, the courageous, and the sparkling, stunning, extraordinary girl."
"I want the girl who makes me dizzy, and makes my head spin and my heart pound. I want her to be mine. She has to be mine, and I will do anything to have her as mine. To make her my girlfriend, because I am falling in love with her. She is teaching me, day in and day out, what real, true love is about. I need her to be mine, and I promise I am going to do everything in my power to fulfill that conquest."
His words make me want to cry. But not sad tears. Not depressed tears. Not angry tears. I want to cry happy tears. I want to tell him that he has changed my opinions, and my views on love, too.
I want to tell him that he is different, he is special, and he has broken all of my rules, failed all of my attributions I need a guy to have in order to date him, and yet, I am falling in love, anyway. I have thrown my crazy long lists and my crazy standards to the wind for him, and I want to tell him that. I want to tell him the truth.
But I do not. I keep quiet, giving him a soft, whispered, "And I promise I will wait until you are ready for me, as long as it takes." And I say nothing more, watching as he grins softly at me, before curling around me, beginning to easily doze off to sleep.
And I reign myself in. I do not allow myself to tell him. I do not say I think I am falling in love with him, too. I do not tell him I want him. I do not tell him I yearn for him. I do not tell him I need him. I do not tell him I think about him, in the dead of night, when he's curled so tightly, so strongly around me, warm and soft and innocent, fast asleep besides me. I do not tell him I lay awake thinking what it would be like to be with him, because I know it's wrong.
We both know it's wrong. He has Raleigh, and we are not allowed to act upon these feelings. It would be so wrong to act upon these feelings, even though, like he said, it is such a feeling, it is better than the rush, the speed, of adrenaline pumping and flowing and igniting itself throughout your veins. It is better than anything I have ever felt in my entire life.
But I am quiet, humming softly to him, leaning my head against the break wall of the venue, letting my thoughts and my silent words plague my mind, instead, driving myself crazy.
I am selfless, and courageous, and I tell him all the rights things. I tell him exactly what he wants to hear, because I no longer know how to tell him anything else. I do not know how to be anything else for him, because I am falling in love with him. And we will do anything to keep each other. I will do anything to stay with him.
I will wait forever for him, because he has changed all my viewpoints, and disfigured my descriptions of my perfect guy, morphing them and forcing them into being something even more brilliant, and outstanding, yet so much more wild and free and silly, something I had never known I had needed, until he had changed it all for me.
He is what I thought I would never be with, never be able to force myself to be with. He is everything I thought I never needed in a boy. Everything I had always shoved to the side, and ignored, always disappointed and disgusted when my friends brought someone around who was just like him.
Because I had always known I didn't need anyone like him. He was too different. He was too silly. He was too cocky. He was too...he was just too. Too everything.
And then I met him. And he changed everything. And instead of being the perfect example to point out to friends and relatives of exactly the type of person I didn't need, exactly the type of person I didn't want, he was now the perfect example of what I did need, what I did want, and I did open up my heart for, upon up my entire world for.
He was everything. And I had always promised myself I wanted a guy who had a narrow list of personality traits. Who was easy to deal with. And because he was the opposite of everything I thought I ever needed, he was perfect for me.
And just like that, I broke the promise I made myself about Raleigh. I had promised myself, it seemed like forever ago, that I would not fall in love with him, no matter what. I had promised myself it was just stupid, and silly, and I should simply ignore it.
But it wasn't so stupid or silly, anymore. I had shattered that promise, and I couldn't be any happier with myself.