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UNEDITED
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THE ONE THING I wish for everyday is the courage to have a conversation with you. The courage to tell you how I feel with actual words instead of with pen and paper.
I guess I always was just a coward.
- Your Unrequited Lover
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10. 21 YEARS OLD - OCTOBER
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Aaron's POV: Two days later:
"IM HONESTLY DISAPPOINTED IN you Roe."
I clamped down on the urge to roll my eyes as I bit into my apple swinging my longs legs off the kitchen counter.
"You're not my mother."
"Watch your tone Roe." She didn't even turn round to look at me as she stirred her stir fry visibly fighting the urge to pick her nails.
I huffed and leaned back against the wall. "Honestly I don't see what the big deal is. We haven't spoken in three years."
She looked at me and her gaze softened. "I know it's hard. I know this is your own form of self preservation but she needs someone to talk to."
"She can talk to you."
She huffed and began to stir passive-aggressively.
"She doesn't want to talk to me. She wants to talk to you. You Arron who has basically been in love with Wren you whole life." Quickly she picked up the spatula and waved it around my face. "Do it Roe. Man up."
I shook my head and some of my curly-ish dale hair fell in my eyes. "No."
"Please?" Her eyes sparkled with thinly veiled hope.
"I'm going to have breakfasts with Ophelia. I'll see you later."
I was about to leave when rose emerged from the kitchen as I opened the front door. "You're always so damn good at leaving."
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My nineteen year old sister, who has decided to go by her middle name Ophelia when she was seventeen instead of Tessa, was a self proclaimed hippie.
I don't object to her self declaration.
Her apartment was only a short walk from ours and it was honestly a beautiful place to live for a nineteen year old. She lived above the local coffee shop.
Which she happened to own.
It's honestly depressing to have a nineteen year old sister who's making more money than you. Her boyfriend is a 'free spirit' and didn't want to run his family business when he was twenty so he passed it onto Ophelia who's been running it successfully for a year and a half while her boyfriend purses his career in art.
Surprisingly he's rather good at it, selling mainly to local gallery's but he's been expanding his horizons recently.
She has her shit more together than me.
I pushed open the door to their apartment/studio to the smell of paint and coffee.
"Tessa?"
"It's Ophelia dumbass!"
I laughed and shrugged off my jacket throwing it onto the little sofa by the door and admiring the walls.
They were painted in swirls Of beautiful murals that Nate had spent hours on when they'd first moved it together.
"Where are you?"
"Kitchen!"
"Where she belongs." I heard a deep joking male voice sound from behind me and I turned to see Nate standing by the door to his studio covered in blue paint. He was the definition of Ophelia dream hipster guy with the deep blue eyes and slight beard scruff.
Beard scruff that I was insanely jealous of. Honestly I can't for the life of me grown one.
"I heard that Nathaniel." My sister in all her five foot four glory stood by the kitchen brandishing a knife. Her dark purple hair tied in a messy bun on top of her head. "Back into your man cave before I contently throw this knife right at your micro-penis!"
She spun on her heel and retreated back into the kitchen. Nate smirked at me and mouthed "Period." Before retiring to his studio.
"You alright Tash?" I asked once I stepped into the kitchen plopping myself down on one of the spinning stools and spinning round as fast as I could.
She silently pushed a steaming cup of coffee toward me when she sat opposite me on the kitchen island. Her eyes scanning over multiple files as she gripped her coffee mug in her hands.
I began to speak again but she put her hand in front of my face as a sign to shut up for a few minutes.
I sat in silence still spinning on my chair and looking around the room. Ophelia was more of an adult than I'd ever be. Her and Nate made such a fantastic unit and they both turned twenty one and twenty in November.
After a few more minutes of feeling like I'd done something wrong she looked at me.
"Roe..."
I groaned. "You're using the mum voice on me! That's not fair you're younger than me!"
"And wiser apparently." I heard her mumble under her breath. "You need to get your shit together Roe. I know you have enough money financially, Grampa left almost all of it for you in his will so I know you can find a nice apartment but you need to focus on your studies and less on women."
I raised my eyebrow at her while placing my cup down on the island and wandering to the disgusting sink. The urge to clean came over me quickly as I pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and began to scrub.
"I'm doing fine Tess. I really don't need to have a lesson on life from my little sister. It's really going to bruise my ego."
I heard her laugh quietly from behind me.
It was silent for a while as I scrubbed and thought before her voice broke through the silence. "You should speak to Wren and mum. Both of them miss you and you're a fantastic person to talk to."
I paused and turned to face her. "I know. I know I should but I don't want to."
"You've kept me grounded."
I snorted. "Yes the nineteen year old business extraordinaire is grounded by the weird musical black sheep of the family."
"You can't be the black sheep of the family, that's mum, you're the kind hearted one who needs to stop with the whole martyr self preservation bull shit and man up."
"I know."
"So you'll talk to both of them?"
I felt my body slump and I sank to the floor by the sink in silence. Soon enough Ophelia sat down next to me.
"Yeah I will."
She smirked and began frantically texting on her phone.
"Who you texting?"
"Rose."
Panic set in my stomach. "Why?"
"She wanted me to bring her over some coffee but I have a meeting in five that's urgent, I accidentally double booked her wedding planning and my meeting. Care to head downstairs and bring her her usual?"
The panic began to seep away.
"Yeah of course." I stood up easily and pulled up Ophelia who smoothed out her boyfriends shirt and adjusted her jeans slightly. "See you later?"
"Yeah." I gave her a quick hug before calling my goodbye to Nate who only grunted in reply.
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I'm going to kill her.
I'd quickly waltzed down the stairs without a care in the world before entering the coffee shop. It was empty apart from a girl in a hoodie sitting with her back to me and the young looking barista.
It's unusual for the shop to be this empty.
I brushed off the feeling of paranoia and ordered mine and Rose regular quickly. It was only after I'd gotten my drink that I heard the click of the lock on the front door and my evil sister standing there smirking in a fashionable pantsuit.
She stuck a note against the glass door that read, "talk to her.", in big letters.
Honestly I'm going to kill her.
The hooded girl lowered the hood from off her face to revel Wren. She was smiling like it was all okay. Like she hadn't smashed my heart into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Hey Roe..." Wren trailed off awkwardly running her hands through her hair.
I sighed and defeatedly sat down in front of her.
God now would be a great time to change this coffee to vodka.
"I know you don't want to talk to me." I started to butt in but she stopped me by talking faster. "I just wanted to talk to you. You were still my friend before your childish... confession... I wanted to talk to you as a friend again."
Childish confession? My feelings for her were just childish?
She continued on as I grew increasingly more hurt and annoyed. "I broke up with Hunter the night of the party, made him move out of the apartment and everything. He's going to room with Brad. You were right I feel so much lighter now that I dumped him."
She was acting so nonchalant that it angered me more.
Irrational anger. Check.
Apart from the fact it wasn't that irrational. She'd blackmailed me into coming here and talking to her then she'd insulted my feelings to prove her point.
"You don't have many friends do you Wren?" I cut in to her mini monologue and watched her still.
Her face turned sour. "I have plenty of friends Roe."
"No, no you don't. If you did you would've spoken to one of them sooner. You would've left Hunter a year ago and you wouldn't be spending this morning with me."
She narrowed her eyes at me but I kept talking.
"You peaked in high school Wren." I spat her name out of my mouth in anger.
Childish confession.
"People don't like you because you use them like tissues then throw them away. You only want to be friends with me because I was obsessed and in love with you once and without Hunter you have no one. So you want me because I'm safe and you can get an ego boost by the 'puppy' that worships your every move."
Her gaze hardened and she looked genuinely annoyed before the soft innocent lamb look came back.
"It's not like that Roe..."
I glared at her.
Childish confession.
"What is it like Wren? You've never had much of an interest in me before why now? Why now after you've just thrown my feelings for you back in my face?"
Childish confession.
"Feelings? Roe as in present feelings?" She asked looking curious leaning forward slightly.
Childish confession.
"Past tense."
Lies.
"Okay. Okay." She ran her hands through her hair. "I meant what I said. I want to be your friend, my joking movie buddy."
"I don't want that." I said calmly as I rose from my chair and began to walk behind the counter.
Wren followed me.
"Do you still love me?" She asked softly as I began to search for the spare key.
"Does it matter?"
She was silent for a while as I found the keys and strolled over to the door and unlocked it.
"Don't go."
I turned on me heel to look down at her. "Why do you want me to stay?"
"I don't know."
"Then neither do I." I took a step towards the door when she grabbed my hand.
Electric. Burning electricity.
"Please. You're the only person apart from my parents who truly love..." I glared harshly at her. "Loved." She quickly amended her mistake. "Me for me. I want to have someone with me again who loves me. Who's boosts my confidence, to tell me I'm beautiful. Like in those little notes you used to leave me."
Boosts her confidence? Make her happy? Who the fuck does she think she is?
"So you want me around to help with you self validation of your own attractiveness? What the fuck Wren!" I pulled my hand away from her and walked towards the door again.
"I didn't mean it like that! Roe! Jesus it wasn't meant to come out like that."
"What was it meant to come out like?" I advanced towards her as she took a few steps back. "Do you even like me in a romantic way? I can't even look at you without my heart aching so you expect me to stay around you as your friend? As you form of self validation?"
"You still love me don't you?"
My silence was answer enough.
She sighed. "I won't ever love you Roe, not like that I did think your confession was childish and ill timed. I thought we were just having fun. You took it as so much more than that and that annoys me. I won't ever be able to love you like that."
I breathed deeply and looked into the eyes I love and miss so much.
"You really know how to rub salt into an open wound don't you?"
I turned my back on her to leave.
"I didn't mean it!"
"You never mean anything. All the kisses and smiles don't mean anything to you. Never have, never will. Leave me alone Wren. I'm not your toy or your personal little complement pot. Leave me alone."
"Please." My voice broke on my last word as I stumbled towards the door.
"I don't want to." She replied stubbornly. "I need you. I need someone to love me!"
"That someone isn't me if you want it to be one-sided." I spat.
I needed to leave her alone. She was a toxic kind of selfish.
"You're walking away from me again?" Wren called after me as I reached the door and dramatically flung it open.
"Im walking away because you've never cared and you never will care." I replied venomously.
The door slammed shut with a bang behind me.
IM SO PROUD OF myself for writing this in one sitting! Normally I takes me a week or so to write a chapter but I managed to do this one in two hours.
Also autumn appreciation day: ( I took the photo )
- BELLE