[Benji; PRBLMS by 6lack]
FORTY-FIVE: when he's finally frightened.
"Jules, table twelve." I'd been zoning out, thoughts popping up in my head as they did pretty often when I was alone. I'd been at work, a stupid little fast food joint and I wasn't paying attention to anything. I hadn't broken down in a while, it was numb now, I was on autopilot.
Since the last time I'd seen my boyfriend -if I could still call him that- we weren't on good terms. He hadn't called me or answered any of the calls I initiated but I was okay. Death hadn't struck me, I wasn't gonna fall to my knees and cry, life went on. He wasn't everything I lived for, he was everything to me, sure but I could survive without Paul.
Maybe I liked to feel a bit poetic, I was very much in love with him but I couldn't stop the world from spinning because he didn't want to talk to or see me. As selfish as it was: Paul was the one pushing me away, I didn't do anything and I didn't need to keep focusing on something that wouldn't change just because I wanted it to.
But despite how much I told myself that I didn't need him to function, I still found myself wanting to go home and crawl under my covers sleeping for a year or two.
"Thanks." My voice was dull, not having the energy nor caring enough to put on a happy front.
"You good?" My coworker, James, had asked. He was a reasonably tall Islander college kid, he was cute but certainly not as cute as my boy- Paul. "You've been a little off lately." Tapping my shoulder, he squeezed me through my long sleeve with the restaurant name printed on it.
Faking a smile so he didn't feel even worse than shown in the pitiful look that he was giving me, I nodded, trying not to see completely pathetic. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You sure? Trouble in paradise?" James was a nice guy, he was, we could be friends if I got out of my head and stopped feeling bad over things I couldn't control. We'd bonded at my interview and he ended up training me on my first day, it'd been around a month since then and often we worked intertwined shifts.
"You could say that." He had brown eyes that reminded me too much of Paul and a wide friendly smile. Being here longer than me, he'd been able to look out for me especially when I got like this. "Boy trouble, nothing much."
And he was straight, never seeming uneasy around the fact that I wasn't, Paul would like him. "Okay, well if you need to talk, I'll be here."
Ever since the diagnosis, everyone around me had been a bit overbearing; the guys never took their eyes off of me, all of them had been checking up on me. I hated being such a huge burden and I wondered if that was how Paul felt about me, I never seemed to give him as much attention as he did me.
There were a million things I would've done differently, the most frequent thought in my head was to not make everything about myself. I wouldn't listened to him, would've given him the space he needed, I was giving it to him now, wasn't I?
Mulling over my thoughts, James became preoccupied with texting his girlfriend, Christine, the one he raved about everyday. He was so in love with her, I envied it. I became lost thinking over everything.
It was officially a week since Paul and I had talked and that week consisted of work, school, and hanging out with the guys. I wasn't used to being away from him for so long and I'd missed him, a lot but I was giving him his space.
Or that's what Will told me to do when he'd dodged all eight of my calls the night he dropped me off and the days that followed. To take my mind off of him, we all ended up at that pizza place we went to the first time, apparently Will had a job here now and even though she wasn't supposed to, she'd been taking multiple breaks just to talk.
Somehow we ended back on the topic of what had happened a week before and they were all offering advice but my head was pounding in my hands again and I was empty. Void of literally everything expect for how much I missed him, I hadn't cried in a while.
I cried the first night, yeah, just the thought of him not wanting anything to do with me hitting me hard and I'd ended up a shaking mess. The second day was a Saturday and somehow I just ended up thinking about him as I sat on the couch beside my dad, maybe something in the movie we were watching had made my boyfriend flash through my mind. All I know is I was sitting there silently, tears falling down my face and before I could leave and clean my face in the bathroom, my dad had wrapped me in his arms.
I didn't tell him that I possibly sexually assaulted my boyfriend and he possibly didn't want anything to do with me, I didn't speak at all. Eventually, he let me go into my room without questions and checked up on me every few hours where he'd only see me laying in my bed and starting at the ceiling.
"Maybe he just doesn't bottom." Andy had tried, a hopefulness in his eyes. Ever since Paul found out about the kiss, things were weird between me and Andy but... he was still my friend. Coming out had made him even more open about things even if he did keep his relationship-thing, with Johnny Casey, a secret.
But even if he was right, that didn't seem right. Paul didn't seem like the type to flip out and not talk to me simply because he wanted to switch positions. He would've talked to me, he wouldn't have looked so scared.
"It was more than that, guys." And it kept replaying in my head: the waver in his voice, his scream, my back hitting the ground, the way he looked at me... "He looked terrified."
And Will's hand was on my back, rubbing gently as she attempted to soothe me, "What if he just wasn't ready?" She'd suggested and I mean, of course that was reasonable. Paul wasn't ready to go all the way, he'd stated that plenty of times, I knew it already. But sexual things didn't always mean sex which we'd also discussed a few times and me engaging in a few sexual things with him didn't mean I was pushing him to have sex.
"I wasn't trying to have sex with him." I wouldn't have minded, sure but the simple fact is: I knew he wasn't ready for sex and I thought I knew his boundaries, "I mean, I just, I was trying to-"
"Put his dick in your mouth?" Ben piped up, hitting the nail on the head and it was annoying how well he knew me.
Andy must've understood it because his voice was loud at that, my stomach churning at the thought that I'd forced Paul to do something he didn't want to do. What if he didn't stop me? What if he regretted it afterwards? "Ben!"
"What?" I wanted to throw up, I was a perv, I was a jerk, I'd nearly sexually harassed my boyfriend. "I know how it works, kinda."
"I just don't get it." He'd said I didn't do anything he didn't want me to do, he said it wasn't my fouls but that felt like a lie and all of a sudden, I was wondering how many things I'd done that he didn't feel comfortable with. Did he feel this way every time we kissed? Every time I touched him sexually?
"What's not to get? You put his dick in your mouth and-"
But I couldn't even laugh at that, I had so much on my mind so quickly cutting Ben off, my head fell in my hands and I tried to feel like less of an asshole. "No." I'd groaned, my thoughts rushing around too fast inside my head and I felt a headache in the making. "I don't get why he's being so weird. I mean, he's had sex before, we've, you know, done stuff... it's just weird."
"He doesn't owe you anything, J." Will spoke up, attempting to get me to calm down but really, that made me even more anxious. Did I make it seem like he owed me something?
"I know."
She wasn't finished and I wanted to crawl in a hole and bury myself, what if this is how he perceived me? "And you can't make him do things because you think he's ready to do them."
"He doesn't have to do anything with me, I just, I wanna know why he suddenly changed his mind. Does that make me a bad guy?"
"No, you wasn't doing anything wrong, he asked you to stop and you did, stop stressin'." Ben had cut in, stopping me from apologizing to someone who wasn't even included in the problem, "you're not making it any better, chill." The pointed look at his sister had shut her up and she raised her hands in surrender.
"Just trying to help."
That was days ago and my heart was still heavy with that talk, they thought that I'd pressured him, they thought I was just mad I didn't get something out of him and that made me sick.
Taking my break after serving the next few tables, I sat around with James as he tried to talk to me, about what? I didn't know. I just knew that the day could not be going by any slower and I sipped from the slushie he'd made me, trying to pay attention to the story he was telling and hoping he wouldn't notice that I hadn't cared all that much.
: : :
Being in love with someone who wouldn't talk to you... really fucking sucked.
"I just want to know why." Okay, so not stressing myself out about Paul wasn't working as well as I'd hoped. I was stressed, I was really stressed and I just wanted to talk it out, Paul being mad at me was a horrible feeling.
"Then ask, you can do that, you know?" Andy had spoken up, he'd been trying to convince me that I didn't have to worry about anything if I just talked about my problem. I'd been trying to talk to him. "You stopped, doesn't mean you can't ask why it happened as long as you accept the answer he gives, regardless of whether or not you think it's the right answer."
What happens when I'm not the one being secretive? When I'm the one wanting to talk it out but he keeps pushing me away, can I really fix it?
"Talk to him." I'd been trying, I really had and they knew this but now apparently that was all I could do, "we can't give you answers, you know him better than any of us."
It was silent. Reaching for my phone to unlock it, I stopped at the picture on my home screen. It was a picture of Paul and I at an art show he was invited to, he was laughing at something, a pamphlet held up to his mouth and eyes squeezed tight. We were sitting on a bench and he just looked so cute in his big jean jacket.
"What if something happened to him?" That question had cut me off, Caspar's voice sounding through my thoughts and I turned my phone over to stop myself from doing something stupid.
Instantly dismissing it, I shook my head. He didn't keep extremely important shit from me. "That doesn't make any sense, he would've told me." But he did, he kept shit from me, in Paul's words, some things were "personal."
"People tend to keep very hurtful things to themselves. You said he was hiding things before." Will added in and I somewhat regretted telling them nights before. I'd been on FaceTime with Ben and we were playing GTA online. It was a normal conversation until Ben mentioned something he'd seen on Paul's twitter. "What if he's just not ready to tell you?"
He'd deleted the tweet right after but it still hurt to know that I couldn't help him.
"No, I know Paul." Then how come he tweeted it instead of talking to me or answering any of my calls? I was a horrible boyfriend and he couldn't depend on me as much as I thought he could apparently... or at least that was what I was convinced as I couldn't fucking breathe and tears were shooting out of my fucking eyes, Ben calling Will in the room to calm me down.
"J..."
"No, he was fine before, I-I don't see how anything could've happened to him. We've done things together, it's not new." I didn't mean to snap and I was slightly surprised that Andy didn't flinch back. "He was fine the first time."
"Even if you've done it before doesn't mean he's okay with doing it again."
"I didn't say he had to."
"We're gonna hang out today." Ben had spoken up, attempting to lighten the mood and end a stare off I was having with his sister. "You up for it?" I really wasn't, I wanted to go home. I truly didn't wanna be here, sitting in Ben's room and talking about this.
"Yeah, come on, get your mind off things." Andy had suggested, punching my shoulder but I wasn't in the mood for anything. Laying back on Ben's bed, I sighed at the ceiling, Will coming to cuddle into my side. Maybe it was a form of comfort or maybe it was her apologizing for the talk we'd had a few days before, I didn't know but I welcomed it.
"I-I'm not-"
"J." She said softly, rubbing my shoulder at that and it helped me calm down. Caspar's eyes were on me, unrecognizable look on his face but it made me uneasy. Did he actually like Will?
But his problems were his problems and i was done with trying to solve people's problems, as selfish as that sounded. Solving Andy's problem led to him kissing me, solving Calum's problem led to tears, and trying to solve my boyfriend's problems led to him not wanting to be near me. "Do you think he doesn't want to be with me anymore?"
"We can't tell you that, he's the one who decides that." She answered but didn't really answer and it seemed like we were running in circles.
"But I think you should stop freaking out." Ben said, standing up and gripping my arm and yanking. I didn't expect it as Will let me go and i went tumbling off his bed. "Come on, let's go." Laying on my back, I glared up at a cheesing Ben, gripping the car keys from a car his mom never used.
"Where?" Dramatically rubbing the back of my head, I glared up at my friend who's smile was wide as hell, he just did things sometimes but I loved being around him.
'I don't love him, I just love being around him.'
Yeah, these thoughts were getting to be too much. "Catch a movie maybe?" Ben had suggested, snapping me out of my thoughts and all I could think of was how Paul's arched movies: he would be so focused on the screen, not speaking but cuddled up against me and occasionally I'd whine because I wanted his attention only for him to give me a soft kiss that left me weak in the knees. I missed him so much. "Go to the lake? I don't know, you need to get out this house."
I could see how bad they wanted me to feel better but I just couldn't force it. Faking a small smile, I nodded to make ben feel better, my gloom had been rubbing off on him and he didn't deserve that. "You know some guys from the team wanted to have an actual end of the season party." Andy had suggested and I really wasn't feeling a party but everyone else was open to the idea. "I could text Johnny and ask if he knows anything about that?"
"Ooo Johnny." I'd teased and Ben laughed at that. They were so dating.
"Shut up." Andy was trying to force a straight face. "He's a friend."
Yeah, a friend you make out with in the locker rooms after practice.
"Whatever you say," Ben trailed off, gripping my hands and pulling me up to stand and I obliged. They were trying to make me feel better, least I could do was try, "text him, and we're gonna do something today."
: : :
It was hot as hell, my skin was red since we'd been out there for so long, I was so sensitive both inside and outside. We were at somebody's party in somebody's pool from seven to the middle of the night. Apparently that somebody was a team member but I'd never been good at names. I didn't wanna do anything, laying on this pool chair and checking my phone was easier.
"Julian, just get in the water." Ben had spoken, his skin glistening in the motherfucking pool and I thought about how much I'd rather be swimming with Paul. I must've really loved that man cause Ben was hot and his trunks were hanging low and clinging to his dick and all I could think of was my boyfriend.
"I don't want to."
"Put your phone down before you start crying again, man." Ben had rolled his eyes, laying back in the pool and I wondered how he was still in there, it'd been hours. "You both need space from each other."
"I don't want space." Especially not when he was tweeting all this off the wall stuff alluding to shit that I didn't want to imagine him going through.
"I know." Andy had spoken and I could tell he didn't know, I mean the guy he was into was here and their relationship seemed so easy. "But if there's no space how is he gonna miss you?" Maybe it was easy because it just started, I didn't know all I knew was things with Paul had just been so difficult lately and I didn't know how to fix it.
"Get in the water before I toss you in." Caspar had sighed, rolling his eyes as he sat beside me on one of the pool chairs. His shorts were dropping with water and there was hair in his eyes as he jerked his head towards the pool. Andy's boy toy was on the other side of me, he was quiet. We'd barely talked... ever... but he seemed a little on edge anyways.
"Whatever."
"Hey, can I see your phone? Mine died and I kinda have to call my mom."
That's why I thought nothing of it when he frowned at his phone and I handed mine over. "Alright."
In a split second, I was lifted from the chair I was sitting on. Fighting to be let down, I was surprised when he locked his pale arms around me. Caspar was stronger than he looked and he was slippery so I couldn't even grip onto his body.
With a big smile in my face, he threw me into the pool, the cold water hitting me instantly before I was engulfed completely. "Caspar!"
"Warned you." He shrugged and Johnny handed him my phone with a sheepish smile. That little dick, I could see why Andy liked him.
"Give me my phone." Attempting to swim towards the edge of the pool and get out, Ben latched onto my foot and pulled me back, "Caspar, give me my phone."
"No," coming to the edge, he smiled at me cynically, "we're gonna have fun today, you need it." Splashing some water at me, he laughed and backed up and that's how the day went on with my friends trying to get me out of my funk.
I tugged my shirt off, tossing it on the concrete and hoping it would dry before I found myself escaping my friends.
I planned on leaving soon, that was all I knew. I had a Law and Order binge waiting for me.
"The fuck happened to your back?"
Maybe it was the numbness that stopped it from hurting. Ben's words kinda shocked me back into reality and all of a sudden my back was burning.
"Nothing." I remembered falling off his bed again.
I remembered the fear in his eyes.
"J."
"I said it's nothing, Ben. Leave it alone."
He nodded, biting his tongue, turning back to the group almost immediately at the bite in my voice. And I hoisted my body back up on the edge, feet in the water, heart in my knees.
: : :
Later that night, we'd been inside, my clothes still sticking to me like a second skin and I'd been in the kitchen with Benji. "Julian, come on, just try to relax."
"Benji!" He took the water out of my hands, downing it in a go and I wasn't sure why I cared that much, maybe because things were being ripped from my hands so frequently now that I had to hold on to whatever I got. He's replaced my drink with a plastic cup, some blue liquid in it and I shook it to see if it fizzed at all.
"Here."
"Uh, I don't really..." I drank one time in my life and that was with Calum. At some points, I started think I always had this anxiety and my depression had just surfaced and skyrocketed with the trauma of coming out. I hated drinking for one reason and one reason only, the one time I drank: my feelings for Calum had been recognized that night.
He was drunk and I was almost there, my head leaning on his shoulder as he giggled at nothing, us sitting on his bedroom floor. His dad was at some "work retreat" Calum would later find out was code for his girlfriend's house and Calum's mom was wallowing on the first floor never coming to bother us.
Looking up at Calum, I'd seen his lips part, watched them move as he told me a story and I wasn't listening, wasn't even trying. He looked so beautiful, that was all I could register, his cheeks were stained with tears that had fallen before my arrival. Calum was always hurting, always and no matter how much I wanted to hate him... I couldn't.
"It'll help you relax, you've been stressin' all night."
Nodding, I took the cup from Ben's hands.
"Molly, Percocet, Molly, Percocet..." Ben had sang along to the music playing around us as he jumped slightly, me feeling extremely lame with all the kids that looked like him dancing in the middle of the room, a circle crowding, "always chase a check, never chase a bitch."
And I didn't know what was in my cup but I knew it would help me forget Paul for a little bit so I drank the contents and sat the empty cup back on the table, allowing Benji to lead me down to the basement where the rest of the team sat.
"You don't have to smoke, ya know?" Andy had shrugged as he grabbed the blunt from Caspar, we'd been sitting around for a little while and I'd sipped on something ben had given me. I trusted Ben and I knew he wouldn't let me do some extremely stupid shit. Johnny sat beside me, staring at Andy and it shocked me when Andy passed the blunt to him and he sucked it in like second nature.
This scared ass freshman was getting lit and I wasn't.
"I know." But there was still a weight on my shoulders that I wanted to get rid of and maybe weed wasn't so bad. Caspar smoked all the time and he was fine, it seemed fun, I was technically an adult and weed was legal in so many states, I was fine.
So we talked for a little bit and everything was chill, I was living and breathing and the drinks I was throwing back made my situation easier to handle. Andy had excused himself and Johnny had followed after saying something about the bathroom. Since when are they sexually active? I'd chuckled at that, discretely patting Andy's back at that and the guys around me gave me weird looks.
They still thought we were dating? Despite the fact that we really weren't as close as before and we hadn't been intimate at all in school... "We broke up." I shrugged, sipping from my drink again and the next question came from some random and I wasn't sure how drunk he was.
"You hit that?" At that, the boy beside him slapped a hand over his mouth and I must've been the only one who heard it because it slid and no one acknowledged it.
Laughing, I shook my head and finished whatever was in the cup I was nursing, think it was my fifth but I'd really lost count. The burn wasn't there anymore and my feelings for Paul were sedated. "Julian, maybe you should slow down on the drinks."
But I was having fun and most importantly, I didn't care about the fact that I was probably single. Drunk and a halfway high, I'd crashed in Ben's bed that night, waking up with bile in my throat and reeking of alcohol.
: : :
My head was killing me. At least the hangover gave me space to not think since thinking about anything for too long gave me a headache. I'd been trying to catch up on some homework but remembering Econ definitions was a hassle when all I could think about was my bed.
I hadn't thrown up much though but the meds I kept for my chronic headaches weren't strong enough and I couldn't take a higher dose with my depression medication.
I'd been in the middle of making something to eat when the doorbell had rang. Finishing up my sandwich, I made my way to the door, nearly dropping it when I looked through the blinds. "What are you doing here?"
His hair was curly as ever and he'd been wearing one of my t-shirts, my school name printed on it, his jean shorts were frayed and I was bad at remembering names but I could exactly recall just how much the left side of his mouth was quirked up and just how much his eyes shined. "I missed you." His voice was soothing and I wanted to cry because I'd really convinced myself that he was done with me.
But that was that, he gave the impression that he was done with me and all I could think about was how much that hurt so I leaned on my doorframe and rolled my eyes. He didn't miss me, if he did, he would've answered my calls. "You've been ignoring me for a week."
"I know, I fucked up, I just couldn't face you after everything." That made me soften, everything Paul said made me weak and I couldn't stay mad at him.
Going to apologize, I sighed, he was going through something traumatic... I couldn't be mean to him especially not with how shaken up he seemed. "Paul, I'm-"
"It's okay, I promise it wasn't your fault." Looking down at his feet, he asked timidly, "Can I come in?"
And I nodded almost instantly, stepping out of the doorframe. "Y-yeah." Letting him in, I closed the door behind me and stood there for a little just watching as Paul stood stiff in the middle of the room. Picking up my books to allow him to sit, I frowned when he didn't. "Here, I was just doing homework, got an essay due Thursday."
"About what?"
"Just Economics and stuff, what did you want to talk about?" Holding my books improperly, I crossed my arms, not even flinching when the corner of my Econ book dug into my forearm. Picking up the rest of my stuff, Paul helped by grabbing my food and I led him up the stairs and into my room.
Something was off, I could tell with how hesitantly he sat down on my bed. Normally, Paul would get comfortable, eat some of my food, start watching some tv... something. He was just sitting there with his hands resting in his lap and his eyes looking up at me as I placed all my books down.
"I'm really sorry for freaking out on you like that." He spoke softly, looking back down at his feet.
"What did I do?" Was this something that had to do with his past? Did I bring memories back? Did someone hurt him? There was something off about this interaction, sitting down beside him on the edge of my bed, I reached for him and then remembered what happened the last time I did that. Retracting my hands, I settled for gripping his knee gently.
"Nothing, I just didn't expect it."
His voice was wavering, Paul was a really bad liar. He didn't lie that often, always an honest person and I admired that but he wouldn't look at me and he wasn't confident at that moment and this was the first real time I'd seen him nervous. "You're not telling me the truth."
"My past..." he was trying not to cry and that broke my heart, "it's not- I just, I don't know what to say." I cried over everything but Paul was always strong and to see him breaking like this...
"You can try, I'll listen, it doesn't matter as long as you try."
So he breathed in and he tried to explain even though I might not understand. "My uh, my sexual history isn't- it's not something I'm really proud of, I-" I wondered how many people he had sex with but instantly shut that thought down. Paul could have sex with whoever he wanted, he was an adult and he wasn't hurting anyone, "th-things happened... and they still kind of hurt and-" taking a deep breath, he wiped some tears that escaped, "and-"
"It's okay." Going to grab his hand in mine, I stopped him, he had to let these tears out.
Wiping his face with his free hand, he tried to face me but his eyes lingered on my shirt and all I wanted to do was kiss him, show him that he meant everything to me. "It's not." But I couldn't, kissing him wasn't the right move, he wasn't ready for that kind of contact after everything that happened. "I wanna tell you these things and I wanna be close to you and I really want you to trust that."
"You're trying." Trying was everything I needed because it just felt like he wasn't trying as much as I was lately and I just needed reassurance that this relationship was as important to him as it was to me. "That's all I want, Paul."
So he tried again and my heart swelled, "Sex isn't e-easy for me anymore." I loved him so much. "I-I don't like feeling vulnerable, I guess, that's part of the reason why I freaked out."
But that wasn't it and he was still avoiding eye-contact. It couldn't just be about him feeling insecure, he wouldn't have nearly cried at the feeling of me touching him and he wouldn't have looked at me as if I were gonna hurt him.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, Paul."
Cutting me off, he didn't respond to that and I let it go, knowing he wasn't ready to talk about that, "I-I have to talk to you about something."
"About what?" Over all the contemplating I'd done the week apart, I realized that I'd made mistakes as well.
"I um..." sighing, he looked back at me and I could tell he changed what he was gonna say as soon as he spoke. "I have to go away for a few days." But that hit me, he was leaving me?
"Go away?" And I tried to ignore how he changed the subject.
"Yeah." Rubbing at his knees, he sniffled and spoke quickly. "Um, LightofDay is supposed to do a meet up with a bunch of other youtubers in LA, huge collabs, meet and greets, big opportunities for channel growth. We were a backup for InspoTV and they were confirmed to go until they pulled out. David got bad food poisoning or something and they won't go without him."
All the way to California, "Oh. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Brandon got the email this morning and I was gonna tell you earlier but school and filming got in the way."
"When do you leave?"
"Wednesday, the meet and greet is on Friday." He answered and I tried not to get upset, maybe Benji was right and some time apart was good for us. At least he wasn't breaking up with me.
"I'm sorry, I should've called or something-"
"How long are you gonna be gone?"
"Like a week." A week was okay. "Nothing big."
But he looked so nervous still. "Are you okay?"
He shrugged, eyes still downcast but when I tried to pull his hand into mine, tried to kiss him the way he always did me when I freaked... he turned his head slightly.
He squeezed his eyes shut and I tried not to take the rejection to heart. Confusion clawed at my chest, my heart beating when he offered a gentle smile, it hesitant.
"Alright, I love you." I made sure to remind him. He wasn't leaving me, he was leaving the state... for a week, we had to prepare for long distance, our career fields weren't stranger to traveling and Santa Barbra was extremely far away. Why not simulate it? See if I'm gonna go or if I'll miss him too much. This was good for us.
I offered a teasing grin but his eyes were still so unreadable, he lacked energy.
"And I'll help you pack, yeah? Pack a few of my shirts so LA boys know you're mine."
But he ignored me and his eyes were sad, head turned from my view and arms pulling his legs to his chest. Stuttering out his reply, I tried not to freak out. "I-I've been thinking..."
"Yeah?" He wouldn't break up with me over this, I'd finally stopped worrying that he wasn't gonna see me in a romantic light one day. We were gonna get past this, we always did, I convinced myself only to have Paul finally be done with my shit.
"Iwannatakeabreak."
A/N:
can't say much except for apologize. i'm sick though, don't be mad at me, i'm just trying not to be the only one suffering. i'm sorry for all that i've done to you, love ya. x
Updated: Mon, April 17.