ARTIST: John Legend SONG: Ordinary People
..."...I know i misbehaved...And you made your mistakes...And we both still got room left to grow..."...
"I try...I have days where I actually feel good about myself but then I have days...that I can't seem to shut my brain off...I can't make the things that happened to me go away...I can't make the things I have done go away...it's those days that are the hardest for me because I take one look at you and I still ask myself that big question. When will you wake up and realize you are just too good for me?"
"I'm sorry you have bad days but you know you can always talk to me about that stuff. Maybe if you talk about it more you can find a way to, not really make it go away, but sort of file it away or something. You keep asking me when I am going to wake up and realize I'm too good for you; do you realize, that maybe I wonder the same thing about you?"
"Why would you say that? I'm not too good for you Landon; you have such a good heart and the way you are so understanding amazes me. I thought for sure when I knocked on your door you were going to tell me to pack my shit and get the hell out of here; not because you would actually say that to me but because it's what I deserve."
"You don't deserve that Faith."
"Maybe I don't but maybe you don't deserve to have such a fucked up girlfriend either."
"The way you are; the strength you have...I am in awe of you every day...and maybe your right. Maybe I don't deserve to have someone as special as you in my life."
"Stop making me sound so perfect, because I'm not."
"To me you are."
"I think you are just too forgiving for your own good."
"Am I now? What about you?"
"What about me?"
"I broke a promise to you last night; do you forgive me for that?"
"I was wrong about what I saw, that doesn't count."
"I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about the fight. I promised you I wouldn't fight and I broke that promise to you. Do you forgive me for that?"
"That fight would have never happened, if it wasn't for me."
"But do you forgive me?"
"Yes."
"See...you said I was too forgiving for my own good; you are too you know. I realize how much I scared you last night and I know I promised you I wouldn't fight like that but I can't keep that promise to you anymore."
"I don't understand."
"Faith...I want to protect you. I don't want you to be hurt. I want to beat the shit out of everyone that has ever done wrong to you. I can't stand by and let someone say or do something to my girl; I can't promise you not to fight like that again. To be perfectly honest with you, even if that whole situation with you taking your clothes off never happened; Jon Tull still showed up at that party. I would have beat the shit out of him anyhow."
"I can understand why you feel that way but do you understand, you are only doing what you are trying to protect me from?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you didn't want me to be hurt right?" She asks as tears begin to stream down her face.
"Yes."
"Don't you realize, that by you fighting, you are hurting me? Maybe some things other people do or say has hurt me but the way I feel when I see you fighting hurts me more than anything. I feel like I can't breathe; I feel like my world is going to disappear because I am so afraid. I don't want to lose you. Seeing you get hurt or get into trouble for fighting, hurts me more than anything else in the world. Why would you want me to hurt like that?"
"Shit...I never really thought about it like that. I'm....you...you're absolutely right and I am so sorry Faith. I promise you that I won't do that again. I want to protect you but protecting you from myself seems more important than protecting you from other people."
"Thank you for seeing it that way." She says as she wipes the tears off of her face and I can see how bad her hands are shaking.
"Will you come over here please?" I ask softly as I shove my sketch book and drawing pencils into the drawer of my night stand.
"Why?"
"Because I want to hold you; I need to." I say with my arms open to her.
Faith stands in the doorway of my room and looks at me for a long moment before she races across the room and launches herself at me.
Her tiny body crashes hard against my chest and her arms wrap around my waist tightly as she buries her face into my stomach. I am still sitting up against the headboard of my bed while she lays across my lap.
The way she is holding me is comforting to her but I want to hold onto her...
I want to feel as much of her body pressed against mine as possible...
I need to feel that same comfort.
I decide to put my need aside for now because I know, if I lift her up and pull her to my body the way I want to, I will end up kissing her.
If I start kissing her right now, things will surely progress to much more and I can't let myself get distracted.
I have to tell her I love her...she deserves to hear me say those words to her.
Even if she doesn't return my feeling, I still have to tell her my secrets...
She trusted me enough to tell me her secrets...
I need to show her that same trust...
She needs to hear my secrets...
A good ten minutes go by before she stops crying and when I feel her tight grip on my waist loosen a little bit, I stop stroking her hair and begin to speak.
"I have some things to tell you pretty girl."
Faith lifts her head up and looks at me; her eyes are confused and even a little scared.
"What kind of things?" She asks warily.
"Can you sit up the whole way please? I want to be able to look you in the eyes when I tell you."
Faith sits up and settles herself between my legs as she crosses her own legs and her knees lay across my thighs as she rest her hands in her lap. Her warm brown eyes are looking right at me.
"Okay, I'm up and I'm looking at you. So what are you going to tell me?"
She still looks frightened by the unknown things I want to tell her but at least she is still settled between my knees.
I need to feel her touch when I talk to her, it's give me the strength I need...
"A few things actually but I need to start with the most important thing first. I need you to know why Amanda hugged me and I need you to know why I said what I said to her."
"It's okay Landon; it was just a misunderstanding on my part."
"I know but I still want to tell you. I was planning on telling you anyhow. It's not like I would have kept that hidden from you."
"Okay."
"Some of what I am going to say might hurt you when you hear it but I need you to hear me out before you say anything to me okay."
"I'll try."
"Guess that's all I can ask for." I chuckle and she gives me a small smile.
"I came out of the bathroom last night to find Amanda crying, part of me wanted to walk away because I didn't really care why she was crying. But I think by now, even you know how other people's emotions affect me. I can't stand to see someone hurting and so I went after her. I wanted to see if she needed someone to talk to. She told me she walked in on her boyfriend having sex with another girl. I felt bad for her at first but then she told me she didn't even love Adam. She didn't love Adam because she was still in love with me."
I stop talking when I see a painful amount of hurt in Faiths eyes.
I lift my hand and brush her cheekbone with my thumb before saying:
"Remember pretty girl, hear me out okay?"
She lets out a small sigh and nods her head in understanding. I drop my hand from her face and clear my throat before I continue.
"I told Amanda that I didn't know what she expected from me. I told her that I stopped loving her a long time ago and that I didn't feel the same way she did. She seemed to accept that but then she asked me about you. She asked me if you and I were serious. I told her that you live at my house so how much more serious can you get than that. I told Amanda how I feel about you and she hugged me and told me that you are a lucky girl to have me. You heard me saying that I'm the lucky one but those words weren't meant for Amanda they were meant for you pretty girl."
"You feel lucky to have me?"
"Yes I do."
"I feel lucky to have you too. You mean everything to me Landon."
"You mean more to me than I think you could ever really know pretty girl." I say softly as I cup her face between my hands and lean closer to her so she will really look at me.
I need her to really look into my eyes when I tell her how I really feel about her.
I press my lips against hers in a short kiss before looking at her again and a sweet smile spreads across her face.
My eyes burn into hers as I start to speak.
"I am so in love with you Faith." I say softly but the conviction in my voice is loud and clear.
The smile slips from her face and her eyes go wide as they dart back and forth between mine as I continue to look at her.
"Y-you love me?" Disbelief is heavy in her question.
"Yes I do. I love you so much."
"No one has ever said that to me before. It's hard to believe you feel that way about me."
These are not the words I wanted to hear...
I wanted to hear her tell me that she loves me too...
I guess she doesn't but at least she's being honest.
"Please believe me because it's true."
"I never thought you would feel the same way about me, as I do about you."
"I do feel the same way about you...I guess maybe just more so."
"That's not possible."
"What's not possible?"
Now I'm confused...
"It's not possible that you feel more for me than I do for you. If you really only knew just how much I am in love with you then maybe you could see it."
"You love me too?"
"So much. I have been in love with you since I gave you that hug at Sonic after the concert."
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Fucking, yes!
"When Jake dropped me off that night and you hugged me goodbye; I missed you the second you were gone. I think I might have fallen in love with you then and I know I have loved you every day since then but it took talking to Amanda to finally make me admit it out loud. Being in love is a scary thing for me."
"It's scary for me too. Knowing how much you own my heart is a scary thing. At any given moment you can crush my heart and ruin me completely."
"I would never ruin you pretty girl." I say softly and when Faith moves to kiss me I place my hand on her shoulder to stop her.
"Don't you want to kiss me?"
"You have no idea just how bad I want to kiss you right now but I can't."
"Why? I don't understand?"
"If I kiss you right now then I will end up getting lost in you and I can't do that. I can't do that because I have secrets to tell you about myself first. I have been wanting to tell you these things but I was just too afraid; too worried about what you would think about me; too embarrassed for you to know how weak I was."
"Try not to be afraid Landon. I was sacred to tell you my secrets but the way you reacted, made me glad I told you."
"The things I am about to tell you kind of all tie together so if you just be patient and hear me out, then maybe you can understand better."
"To use the words you spoke to me that day at the lake; I got nothing but time." She grins and I return her grin with a soft smile of my own before I start to speak.
"When I was in the hospital after my accident; a bunch of doctors came in and explained exactly what was wrong with me. They told me that if I completed physical therapy that I would be able to master my crutches and I would still be able to live a fairly normal life. It sounded like a bad joke to me to be honest with you. How could walking around with crutches for the rest of my life be normal, you know? That day my dad and Jake were in the room with me and so was Amanda. Dad and Jake smiled encouragingly towards me but Amanda started crying. The doctors then told me there was another option for me."
"What was the other option?" Faith asks in curiosity.
"They told me, that they could do an operation on my spine and between the surgery and physical therapy, I would be able to walk on my own two feet again; to be able to even run again. They said, the technique they were going to use, to do the operation, had an eighty percent success rate. I asked them what was the twenty percent difference and they told me, that there was a fifteen percent chance that I could be completely paralyzed after the surgery and they told me, I had a five percent chance of dying."
"Wow! I bet that was scary to hear." She says softly.
"It was. As much as I didn't want to have to use those crutches for the rest of my life, the thought of being paralyzed scared me to death. I told the doctors I didn't want the surgery and my dad and Jake backed me up because they understood my reasoning. Amanda didn't back me up though, she got hysterical and started ranting and raving about how important it was that I focus on the greater odds of the surgery instead off dwelling on the small negative odds. No matter how many times I or dad or even Jake tried to explain things to her, she just wouldn't listen. She called me a coward. She told me I ruined her life. She told me she hated me for not getting the surgery and that she was breaking up with me. Jake had to drag her out of my room because she upset me so bad."
"I'm so sorry she hurt you like that. That was completely selfish of her for telling you that you ruined her life. What about your life? How is wanting to make the best of a bad situation, make you a coward? I think you were brave for standing up for yourself."
"See...you understand. You can see that I would rather use those crutches or have those five percent odds of dying over being completely useless for the rest of my life."
"I don't know if dying would be better but I understand what you mean by not wanting to live the rest of your life being paralyzed."
"Can I ask you something pretty girl?"
"Sure."
"So many terrible things have happened to you and I know, even though you shouldn't feel that way, you find yourself feeling worthless because of those things right?"
"Yes but I'm working on not feeling like that way anymore."
"That's good, I'm happy to hear that and you know, I will be here to help you in any way you need me to but I still have a question."
"So ask me."
"Did you ever have such a bad day that you thought about just leaving this world to make the pain go away?"
"You mean like suicide?"