Special thanks to @@heartsleeve for her many, many votes on Life is Liz.
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And enjoy!
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Forget me not my dear, my darling
Forget me not my love
~The Civil Wars, Forget Me Not
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My sister was back in town.
I'm gonna say it once more, my sister and her boyfriend were back in town.
Why?
Because she was visiting us and because there's a big family reunion on Saturday. I wasn't exactly thrilled to go to a family dinner at the moment. I was dreading it already, but I had to attend. There was no possible way for me to skip this.
But I'll cross that bridge when it gets here.
For now, the thing I had to focus on was preparing my house for dozens and dozens of football players-because drum roll, please-team bonding was going to happen in my house. Today. Oh the joy.
I had to make sure to lock my parents bedroom, my sister's room and mine just to make sure that none of them would snoop around. That was one of the precautions I had to take. Another one was to put all precious things away from the quarters they were allowed to enter.
Luckily dad was of big help. He bought lots and lots of soda and helped me fill the fridge. My parents had nothing against the idea to fill our house with jocks. They even welcomed it with open arms. It wasn't unusual for my parents to let me invite friends over. Not at all, they were always offering and urging me on to do so. They just wanted me to be happy and tried to make everything possible that I wished to do.
Plus, it was the football team and my dad was pretty much into football.
And so, in no time, my house was filled with football players. All of them were basically hanging around either in the kitchen, the living room or the back porch. I was pretty sure the boys were enjoying themselves.
"Liz!" Shaun called out to me from his position at the kitchen island. Some others were gathered around the room as well, chatting and drinking and eating some of my cookies.
"What's up?" I asked after I joined them.
"Who was that guy on the phone the other day?"
I frowned. "What guy?"
"When I answered your phone that day at Jack's place. You know, that guy. What was his name again?" He snapped his fingers. "Sam. His name was Sam."
Sam.
My heart stopped for a second.
Tentatively, I responded with my frost against his heat.
I took a deep breath.
The one moment I wasn't thinking about my first kiss I was reminded of it. I suppressed the urge to put my cool palms against my blazing hot cheeks. I cleared my throat, acting nonchalant. "What about him?"
"Who is he?"
Luckily nobody was paying much attention to our conversation at the moment since most of my close friends were lingering around, Logan among them.
"He's..." We were a tangle of heat and frost. "Noone. We used to date."
He nodded in understanding. "Is he the guy you were making out with in the parking lot?"
My eyes almost fell out of their sockets. "How do you-" I hadn't told anyone.
"Oh that's easy, I saw you. I was on my way to my car and... you probably know the rest."
I stared at him, mouth hanging open in a grimace. "Don't worry I won't tell anyone, but if you didn't want to be seen you should have-"
I reached out and put my hand against his mouth to shush him. "Firstly, it was just a kiss and secondly, it wasn't planned, alright?" I pulled my hand back again.
He gave me a look. "Is it ever?"
I just sighed and shouldered past some of my friends to get myself some water. Leaning against the fridge, I closed my eyes for a moment and took a sip of my cold drink. "And I told you to stop." My voice cracked as I pushed at his chest and twisted out of his grip.
"Hey, Graham!"
Taking a shaky breath, I opened my eyes. Coldness crawled up my spine as I walked over to Liam and some of my friends. I pulled at the sleeves of my cardigan until they reached my knuckles, trying to rid my body of the cold with little success. "How are you doing?"
"How are you doing? We're basically talking to each other for the first time today."
I scratched my left bicep with my right hand. "Yeah, it's been..." I cleared my throat, looking away.
"Hey, Peanut." Arms wrapped themselves around my shoulders from behind. I doubt I'd ever been this happy to see Ryan.
"Hey!" I spun around to face him.
He looked somewhat surprised at my sudden outburst. My gaze flitted over his features. The dark spots under his eyes were still there and his skin tone seemed paler, but all in all he looked better than he had for the last few days. "How are you?"
He frowned, eyes flying over my features. "Okay, you?" I nodded. "Actually, do you have some ice? My shoulder hurts a little."
I nodded, my stomach twisting. "Just grab it from the freezer." He thanked me with a nod before he went to fetch it. "You sure you are okay?" I asked when he came back.
"Don't worry, Lizzy. Ryan's a tough cookie."
I broke out in a grin and looked up at the QB. His lips curved into a smile as well as he looked down at me. I reached out and ruffled his hair. "Oh and what a Cookie he is."
He glared at me in a playful way for disheveling his hair, but when I laughed lightly he smiled down at me.
"Uh, did I miss something?" Liam asked in confusion.
"Yeah, what's so funny, you two?" Logan asked with narrowed eyes.
I waved it away. "It's nothing. Forget it." They looked suspicious still, but shrugged. "Hey, talking about tough cookies," I said, turning to Logan. "Guess who I walked into today?" He had no idea. "Rose."
Sharp intakes of breaths were heard from Liam and Tony, standing on either side of my best friend. Logan himself looked at me blankly. "Did she talk to you?"
"No. I said hi and she glared at me. That's it." Rose was Logan's ex girlfriend. They broke up almost a year ago and had only been together for a few months. The reason for their break up was unknown to me, but I was told that she'd dumped him. "Can you believe it? She glared at me when I shouldn't even be talking to her after what she did to you."
Tony furrowed his brows. "What did she do to him? I'm confused."
I gave him a look. "Uh she ditched him?"
"What? No, he-ouch." He rubbed his abdomen after Logan had driven his elbow into his tummy.
I narrowed my eyes at them both. There was something fishy about their demeanor and I was going to find out what it was. "What did I miss?"
Logan glared Tony down. The latter forced out a 'nothing' through gritted teeth, his eyes still on Logan.
"Logan, can I talk to you for a sec?" I grasped his arm and dragged him off, not really asking him to come with me. "What are you not telling me?" I asked once we arrived in my room, hands on my hips. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't know how. "Why did you and Rose really break up?"
He sighed, averting his eyes. "I dumped her."
"Why?" Why would he lie to me about it?
"You remember when we broke up?"
"Last December." Something made click. "Wait-"
"She got overly jealous when I started spending more time with you after.." He didn't need to say it. After the attack Logan tried to be there for me as best as he could. "Eventually, she forced me to choose."
"Choose?" I asked tentatively.
"She forced me to choose one of you. Her or you."
My eyes widened. "And you chose me?!"
He nodded.
What came next he didn't see coming. I hit him with a pillow. Over and over again. "Ouch. Liz, stop it."
I didn't. "Why would you do that? You could have told me. I would have understood."
He grabbed the weapon from my hands and threw it on my bed. "It wasn't just the ultimatum though. We'd been together for little over one month and she started to become clingy. So I broke up with her. I never really liked her that much anyways."
"If you are just telling me this so I don't feel bad, I swear to God Logan I-"
He put his hands gently on my shoulders and shushed me. "I'm not lying and don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing for me. Or anyone else of our friends."
I sighed in exasperation. "That's different."
He shot me a look. "How is this different."
"I don't know, it just is. Whatever. The point is you should have told me. I would have gladly taken a step back and let her have more time with you."
"Oh, I know that you would have. And I also know that you needed me." I sighed and looked away, arms crossed over my chest. "Jo was there for you too, I know, but you needed all the support you could get. I wanted you to feel better as fast as possible. Do you think I liked seeing you that way?"
I'm sorry, the words were on the tip of my tongue, yet I didn't dare speak them.
"You were distant and I don't blame you for your behavior. Really, I don't. I guess your reaction was human nature, but you have to understand that I was worried about you. Nothing you would have said could have changed that and even if I told you and I'm sure that you would have told me to choose her I would not have opted against you. I'm your best friend, Liz and because I am, I'm gonna tell you something that you won't like."
Not again.
"You need to do things for yourself once in awhile. I know you mean well and try to make others happy, but you need to make yourself happy first." I sighed again and sat down on my bed. "Can you promise me that?" I didn't move a single muscle. He bent down towards me and tried to catch a glimpse of my face, but it was angled away from him. He sighed. "Can you at least acknowledge what I said?"
Slowly, I nodded.
"Okay." He squeezed my shoulder. "Can I ask you something?"
Tentatively, I nodded. My chest was so tight I couldn't speak. My throat was closed off.
"Why did you really break up with Sam?"
Immediately, I shook my head.
"You really don't want to talk about it, do you?"
"I can't." My voice was not my own. It sounded detached, far away.
"Okay. You want some time alone?"
I nodded again, beyond grateful.
He squeezed my shoulder once more and before he got too far I reached for his wrist. "Logan." This time I could somehow bring myself to look at him. "Just know that I'm okay."
He gave me a soft smile as he gently brushed his palm over my right cheek. "Okay."
I smiled up at him before he went out the door. The moment I was alone my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Liz."
Tori.
"Hey."
"I'm out with Nathan and... I was just wondering if we could come home."
I sighed. I'd kicked them out of the house. Not really since they had plans before I announced that the team was coming over, but I forbid them to come home.
"Tori.."
"I know, I know. You said it's solely about team bonding and all that, but-"
"No but."
"Liz," she whined.
"Tori, no."
"Do I need to call mom and dad?"
I sighed. I'd just waited for her to play that card. My parents were all about the prospect of my sister and me to have the same friends. So whenever Tori invited me to come to a party or a shopping trip with one of her friends and I always declined, reasoning that I didn't know any of them, my parents reasoned that I could get to know them. It was weird for me, because I didn't want to befriend her friends. I'd never been rude to them, but I didn't know them that well and I intended to keep it that way.
Whereas I didn't want to have anything to do with people close to her she was ecstatic at the idea. And I hated to admit this, but whenever that happened I became possessive. Immature, I knew, but it just happened.
So, I was trying to keep both of their worlds apart as best as I could. Of course she knew my friends just like I knew her friends, I was aware of that, didn't mean I liked it though.
Sometimes I think my insecurities were what made made so possessive of my friends. I was scared that if they talked to her and if they saw me talking to her they would realize that they'd made the wrong decision. That they'd chosen the wrong sister.
"-unfair. You're having a party and we're not invited-"
"It's not a party."
"Whatever." I could basically feel her rolling her eyes.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. "You know what, fine. Come home. I don't care."
I hung up.
And suddenly I realized everything went quiet.
I savored the silence. Finally, the quiet settled back into the room. Feeling exhausted and unable to get up I decided to take a break. My body was so stressed these days that I had the feeling I would faint most of the time. I crawled up my bed and turned on my side to face the window, hugging a pillow close to my chest. My bones felt heavy in my body as I laid there, with them weighing me down, pressing me into the mattress.
Until his warmth pulled me back.
I let out a heavy sigh and pressed the pillow closer to my form. Without my consent my mind conjured up the image I was trying to forget with all my might.
"Sam, let me go," I said, my voice was so thick it was hard to talk.
Goosebumps broke out over the skin of my arms and legs, a cold shiver ran through my form as my hollow body stiffened. I curled myself into a tight ball, trying to sink into left over warmth that I had yet to find.
My phone buzzed with a new text message, awakening my body. I forced myself to unlock the screen and to open it.
My heart clenched. I flipped it over so I didn't have to look at it.
A flicker of heat flowed through a crack and warmed my form.
I can't stop thinking about you.
I sighed and squeezed the pillow to my heart. Oh, Sam. You need to stop. This isn't good for either of us. You need to forget me. Live your life and forget me. Find someone else and forget me. Be happy and forget me. Kiss a beautiful girl and don't think of me. Lie awake and don't think of me. Spend time with your friends and don't think of me. Go to school and don't think of me.
Forget me and don't think of me.
Was that really what I wanted?
Never forget me and always think of me.
No. I'd made the right decision. I needed him to move on. I needed him to cut me out of his life completely. I needed him to leave me alone. I needed him to be happy.
And if that meant that I wasn't happy then that was okay. I could live with that. I'd lived with unhappiness most of my life I could do the same now.
A gentle knock on my bedroom door made me sit up. I cleared my throat and ran my palms over my features. "Come in!"
The door opened and Ryan's head peeked in. "Hey, Peanut," he greeted me sheepishly. "Are you busy?"
"Yep, you're interrupting something important here."
He leaned against the doorway, a smile curving the corners of his lips upwards. "Really? And what would that be?"
"Enjoying the silence."
He closed the door behind him and took a seat on my bed, on the place near my feet. For a moment he just stared straight ahead at the wall opposite. The wall that was bathed in pictures.
I watched him as he ran his eyes over the photographies. I contemplated asking him about his shoulder-a football injury, I suppose-but opted against it. I didn't dare speak. Mainly, I was just too exhausted to do so.
Most of the captured moments of my life didn't get a reaction out of him, but his eyes held a curious glint in them as they swept over every photo.
If I wasn't watching I probably wouldn't have seen the change in his expression as his gaze halted on one particular photograph. His jaw went slack, his eyes widened a fraction, a small almost inaudible noise left his parted lips, his shoulders stiffened.
He got to his feet, eyes never leaving the picture as though it would vanish the second he looked away.
I followed after him to the left side of the wall, needing to know what had him so flabbergasted. I watched as his gaze locked onto the picture of me and Alex at the playground-the most recent addition to the kindergarten collection. Alex was on one of the swings with me positioned behind him, pushing him higher and higher into the air.
Ryan ogled it some more in a strange silence that had settled over the room once again. He moved his hand as though to reach out for it, but stopped himself. Slowly, a smile spread across his lips before he faced me. For a moment, he just studied me as hard and as long as he had the photography. "You looked so cute when you were young. Not that you don't look it now, but you know you've grown up and it's different."
Not knowing what to say, I refrained from replying. Should I thank him? Tell him that he's cute too? Do I nod?
"If you don't mind me asking, who's that boy next to you?"
I cleared my throat a little uncomfortably, attempting to get rid of the tightness. My heart clenched in my chest. "Oh, er, that's Alex."
His lips parted, but no noise came out. Silently, he looked at me, his eyes racing from one part of my face to another in seconds.
"He used to be my best friend."
His voice sounded hoarse when he spoke next, but slow, deliberate, careful. "Why, what happened?"
I cleared my throat before answering, averting my eyes from his intense gaze. "He died in a plane crash."
For a moment, he didn't respond. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and reached out to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well, that's er,.. That's horrible. I'm sorry." His eyes weren't on me anymore, but racing over the floor.
For a moment we stood there in silence, both of us barely looking at one another. Then he looked up, eyes tracing the photos again. This time they had a purpose, they were looking for something. Then he turned to me, fishing his phone out of his pocket.
"What are you doing?"
"You have lots and lots of pictures up there. Mostly of your friends." He looked up from his phone to gaze at me. "But there are none of you and I."
Immediately, my stomach twisted. "Sorry. We've just never taken any photos together."
He nodded slowly. "And that's about to change."
I cocked my head to the side. He handed me his phone, a boyish smile on his face. "You do know that most pictures get taken spontaneously, right?"
"Well, Peanut," he ran a hand through his hair. "The key word in your sentence is most."
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, but you have to admit that the background is pretty... unspectacular," I said, gesturing to the wall we were standing in front of.
"I will do no such thing, because nothing about this is unspectacular." I tilted my head to the side, brows furrowed. "All these images have one thing in common." I raised my eyebrow, urging him on to speak. He had my full, undivided attention. He turned to the photos, now and then glancing at me sideways. "They mean something to you. The people up there are the ones closest to you. It seems like your friends mean the world to you and I can't tell you how honored I feel to be up there with them."
A soft smile graced my lips as I reached out and gripped his muscular bicep. "Why wouldn't I put you up on my wall? We are good friends. You are important to me. I care about you."
Something crossed through the green of his eyes as he stared me down. Once the intensity of his gaze filled me with a foreign emotion and I grew self conscious, I averted my eyes. "So, um... 'bout that picture..."
He cleared his throat. "Sure."
When I didn't move he took his phone out of my hand and turned me so I was facing my bed. His arm came out from around me, holding his phone, while the other one curved around my waist. My breath hitched in my throat as his front pressed against my back. His hard muscles were brushing gently against my.. curves. I was hyper aware of his hand settled casually over my stomach. I wondered if he was as aware of the fat hiding behind my shirt as I was. I wondered if he was disgusted with me. I had the strong urge to pull away or at least to reposition his palm on my abdomen.
"Smile!" Immediately, I forced my mouth to curve up.
At the last second he bent down and kissed my cheek. Heat flooded my system. Unconsciously, my smile widened naturally as his soft lips pressed against my hot skin. His touch lingered for longer than necessary, strangely though I didn't mind it all that much. In fact, I embraced the warmth that filled me with open arms.
"I'm gonna take one more," he said, his breath hitting my cheek. "But this time I get a kiss."
I chuckled and turned to look up at him. A smug smile adorned his face, but his eyes were filled with laughter. "Oh, do you now?"
"It's only fair. You got a kiss now I get a kiss."
He was watching me as I threw my head back and laughed. Unconsciously, I licked my lips before they stretched into another smile. My heart picked up speed as I cupped the left side of his face with one hand, turning his face to the front while I got on my tiptoes and pressed my lips softly against his cheek, my eyes closed. His skin was smooth under my touch. Smooth and warm.
After what felt like minutes I went to pull away, but his grip around my waist tightened unexpectedly, holding me in place. His body temperature against my own made me shiver, goosebumps breaking out over my skin. His scent was comforting as it wrapped around me.. Masculine, but sweet. Familiar, but strange. Home, but a person.
After a little while his grip on me loosened and he allowed me to pull away. I glanced up at him, finally standing firmly with my two feet on the ground again.
He gazed down at me, features tense. "Remind me to take more pictures with you in the future."
I laughed again. Today I'd been laughing more than all of last week and I didn't feel guilty for doing so once. I enjoyed myself. I was enjoying myself in Ryan's company. Briefly, I wondered why I hadn't spent more time with him lately. I knew the answer, but I hid it in a dark corner of my brain, somewhere deep in my mind. I made a mental note to spent more time with Ryan and the guys. They could pull me out of my misery long enough to forget for a second. But, God, I didn't want to forget.
Never forget me and always think of me.
I expected Sam to do the one thing I couldn't do. Forget. Maybe he could do it if he just willed himself enough to do so. Because God knows he had more strength than I had.
He was strong. Sam could reach the point of oblivion. He just needed to accept that it was for the better. And God, did I hope he would reach that point soon.
Forget me and don't think of me!
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Hey guys
I'm really really sorry that it took me so long to update, but I had a difficult last few weeks. Recently, I came to realize once more just how selfish people really are and how much people just love to look away, to close their eyes from something and turn their backs on it as though it never happened. And I also noticed once more just how people lie every day. How people put on a mask every morning. It made me wonder just how much we truly know about people that are close to us.
However, I'm not gonna elaborate further on the topic.
So, what do you think of the new chappy? Also, I've been meaning to ask, is Jack a secret #Bex shipper? *gasp* Also, Tori's back and the rest of the fam's close behind. How will that family reunion go? Aaaaand Ryan finally found out that Liz remembers at least something of her childhood!
I think that's all for now.
Again, I'm really sorry for the long wait and I don't know when I will be able to update next bc of exam month...
Don't throw stone's at me.
(If you wondered, yes that was an intended Imagine Dragons reference)
Love you guys so much and thank you for all your support!!
Hugs and kisses
Kathy