Author: Rhine
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Little do you know
I’m still haunted by the memories
If you closed your eyes, you could see all the perfect moments; like a slideshow reel of someone else’s life before your eyes.
Someone else who was smiling. Laughing. Happy.
In love.
It felt like invading their privacy; watching their gentle nose rubs and tender kisses and hearing their whispered declarations of love and promises of forever. You were there, watching as the swayed to the music of their love, you were there at two thirty in the morning when he wrapped her in his sweater and held her close, kissing her eyelids and wishing her sweet dreams in his arms.
But it shouldn’t of felt like you were an outsider looking in.
Not when it was your face as the girl and Luke as the boy who featured in the slideshow behind your eyes.
No, it wasn’t a show. They were memories.
But somehow, they didn’t feel like yours. Not when they were hazy and blurry and the words warped too loudly and too quietly in your ears; not when you could feel the love between the couple before you but not in your own heart.
They were beautiful and perhaps that’s why it haunted you so much.
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Little do you know
I’m trying to pick myself up piece by piece
You haven’t been the same.
And neither has he.
You’re not sure what went wrong, where the two of you started to crack and tear away at the seams - all you know was that you did and that your relationship started crumbling before your eyes.
Fights and silent treatments and apologies that never left your lips while insults found their way slipping out of your mouth all too easily.
You can’t remember the last time you simply lay in Luke’s arm, the last time you kissed him because you simply felt like it.
You wanted to fix what you had, but you’re not sure what’s wrong to begin with.
Maybe it’s just him.
Maybe it’s just you.
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I’m ready to forgive you but forgetting is a harder fight
If you think back to your time with Luke in the past few weeks, all you can remember is his stony silence and the cold tension between the two of you whenever you were in the same room. You don’t remember how or why; all you know was that you were stepping on glass when it came to him instead of running to his arms.
And you didn’t know where to start and you didn’t know where it’d end, if it’d end at all.
All you knew was that you didn’t want you and him to end but every time you tried to reach out you’d be pushed back with another biting remark that sent another wave of anger and frustration down your spine that made you regret even trying in the first place.
You just wanted to throw away your stupid pride and hold him close and tell him he’s an idiot but you’re an idiot too, but you’re not sure if you can go back to the place and time when all your mistakes were just brushed under the rug.
The two of you had said too much and not enough and now you’re afraid you’re too late.
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Little do you know
I need a little more time
You just needed to breathe.
You needed to clear your thoughts and think straight and you needed to figure out how to solve this problem; how to find a way to reverse time or suck up your pride.
You were once a puzzle piece that fit perfectly with him, but now what you had left was a mess of pieces and odds and ends that made a picture you’re not sure you wanted to see.
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Little do you know
All my mistakes are drowning me
He’s screwed up.
Maybe it was just one bad day or a meaning he took the wrong way, but whatever it was, he took it too far and he dragged it for too long and you and him are a tangled mess of tension and silence and he’s messed it all up and he screwed up he screwed up he screwed up.
He’s convinced that if only he had shut his mouth or thought a little clearer then maybe he could’ve stopped this stupidity, or if he only stopped to think about how he was hurting you from the start then none of this would’ve happened and you’d be in his arms with a smile on your lips as you snuggled into his chest.
And he’s not sure how he managed to pilot the two of you into this abyss of coldness and hostility, but all he knows is that he’s crash landed the two of you into the ruins of what was once a relationship and he’s drowning in his stupid mistakes.
He just doesn’t want you to drown too because of him.
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Little do you know
I’m trying to make it better piece by piece
He’s rehearsing lines and writing down speeches and little monologues of love and apologies but everything comes out wrong and he’s certain he’s as transparent as a ghost when he recites those words to the mirror.
There’s no feeling behind it; he can’t say words of love and happiness when all he feels is empty and broken.
Without you.
The words I’m sorry is scribbled all over his notebooks over and over again, the two little words in place of the lyrics of love songs he used to write for you.
The melody’s a little different and the emotion’s not the one you’re used to hearing, but the song is still for you and Luke wonders if you’ll ever see the pages upon pages of the messy scrawls of the apology repeated over and over again.
He wonders if you’ll accept it like the love songs he used to write for you; if you’ll understand the meaning the way you used to when he spilled his heart for you.
It’s a little this time around and he’s afraid maybe you won’t want his words or his heart when it’s as broken as it is now.
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Oh wait, just wait
I’ll love you like I never felt the pain
And you think that despite all the cold loneliness of the past few weeks with Luke, you still love him with all the corners of your heart - it might be a little jagged now, but it’s still there.
You still love his bright blue eyes and his soft touch and his stupid jokes and even though you haven’t seen any of them in so long, you can still remember them all fondly from your memory and you fall in love all over again.
You remember Luke and you remember the Luke you fell in love with, and even though the Luke you have now is a little sharper with you and a little colder with his touch, there’s a piece of your heart that still sees the boy you fell in love with.
You see it in the concentration when he’s working or the serenity in his face when he’s asleep or in the way his body leans towards yours when he’s asleep; drawing closer to you like he always did.
There’s still a part of you that hopes that he’ll come back.
And there’s a bigger part of you that loves him, even after everything.
Because you still find yourself curling up closer to him when he’s asleep and snoring, tentatively brushing his arms and holding your breath before you begin to relax in his sleep-induced embrace.
His arms find a way around you like it’s the most natural thing in the world and if you closed your eyes you could pretend the coldness was all just a dream.
It wasn’t hard. Not when his touch is still so warm against your skin.
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I’ll wait
I promise you don’t have to be afraid
He doesn’t like the way your eyes avoid his or the way you find an excuse to leave the room the moment he enters, slipping away from his grasp before he can even properly hold you.
He doesn’t like how your lips quiver downwards and how your steps are walking away from him instead of towards him.
But most of all, he doesn’t like how he’s the cause of it all.
You’re avoiding him now, and all Luke can think is that he might just deserve it from all the wrongs he made.
But he tries to soften his gaze when he looks at you, even if your eyes meet his for a fraction of a second.
He tries to muster a half smile - he couldn’t manage a whole one, no, those are reserved for when you were in his arms - and he tries to say something that comes out right.
And while you’re still bewildered and suspicious and a little to cautious for his liking, he tries to not let it bother him as much as it did.
He notices that slowly, slowly you’re sitting a little closer to him and meeting his eyes for more than just a brief moment, and on lucky days maybe he’d get a small little half-smile in return.
And while it might not be much, it’s more than enough for Luke and he’d wait for as long as he needed to work his way up to a full smile, a hug, a kiss.
He’d work his way back up to love again.
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This love is here to stay
So lay your head on me
You’re tired and so his he and neither of you are sure where it went wrong or how to fix it again, but you’re both willing to try.
Try for him. For you. For what was left of an ‘us’.
And it was hard work and it was slow progress and maybe there’d be days where it be too little for too much but you wouldn’t give up and neither would he.
You remind yourself that it’s worth it, that he’s worth it, and you know that what you had - have - is salvageable.
And while sometimes it’d be hard to piece back the remains of what love you had, you’d know that you could turn to Luke and he’d be there with the same weary hope in his eyes.
He’d be there at the end of every exhausting day, and while maybe you two were just a little more than strangers sharing a bed at this stage, you knew that if you waited long enough, you’d hear Luke’s snores and his body would automatically shift to yours as if a magnet was pulling him to you.
And you’d knew that you’d always drift towards him again.
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'Cause little do you know
I love you ‘till the sun dies
You knew and he knew that no matter what stupid argument the two of you would get into, no matter how long it lasted or how cold it got, you’d always have each other.
You’d always have his embrace and he’d always have your comfort.
And the two of you would always have your love - albeit a little more chipped and cracked at times - but it’d always be there.
You weren’t perfect and neither was he and your love was far from being the same, but it was enough.
It would always be enough.
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