Always had and always will.
When Lucas said he had to use the restroom, I leaned against the wall admiring how everyone appeared so happy and in love. I wondered if we looked like that, from an outside perspective. I contemplated if this could be a new beginning for us…
My question was answered when I heard Van Morrison through the speakers. I looked around until I found Lucas. There he was with a smug grin on his face, waiting for me to meet him on the dance floor. I didn’t have to ask to know he requested for the DJ to play this. They would never play Brown Eyed Girl at my senior prom.
He sang it to me the entire time, spinning me in circles and holding me too close for the rhythm of the music, but the mood changed drastically between us when the soft beats of Stand By Me by Ben E. King played next. He didn’t falter. He pulled me tighter into his strong, muscular body, fitting me perfectly in the nook of his frame. He guided my arms around his neck like he wanted no space between us, and then his arms wrapped around me, proving my point.
I laid my head on his chest and he placed his chin on top of my head, softly singing the lyrics to me again. It was around the chorus of the song when something felt different. He felt different.
And then it hit me. I softly shut my eyes with a single tear falling down the side of my face.
This wasn’t a new beginning for us.
It was the end.
He was saying goodbye.
When we got back into the truck, I just knew where we were going. He parked his truck in the driveway, the soft rumbling of the diesel engine hummed beneath our bodies. I stared at the house that stored so many memories of my adolescence. I wasn’t a child anymore. I was an adult.
A woman.
“You don’t have to bring me here to break up with me, Bo. We’re not even together,” I stated, never taking my stare away from the house that held my childhood.
“Where are you going to college, Alex?” he asked with a voice so calm it scared me.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
I leaned my head against the headrest. “I thought I would go to Ohio State—”
“Why?” he interrupted, holding onto the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles turn white.
“What do you mean why? You know I want to be with you boys. I thought we could be—”
“No,” he firmly stated, immediately making me turn to look at him.
“No?” I repeated, confused.
“You’re not going there because of the boys. You’re going there because of me.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters a lot. It matters more than it should. You’re following me, Alex.”
“So, what if I am.”
He let go of the steering wheel and bowed his head in defeat. I wanted to crawl into his lap and make it all go away, exactly how I did when we were kids and he was sad.
“You can’t follow me,” he let out. I didn’t want to hug him anymore, now I just wanted to scream at him.
“You can’t tell me what to do!”
He scoffed. “That’s all I’ve been doing, Alex, for our entire lives I have told you what to wear, who to talk to, what to do, it goes on and on. I can’t do that anymore. It’s not fair to you.”
I fervently shook my head. “You don’t mean that.”
“But I do. You need to experience your own life outside of me, outside of the boys. Damn even outside of this island, Alex.”
“I don’t want to, that’s not what I want. I want to be with you, with all of you. Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, my voice breaking as I wiped away the tears that slowly began to trickle down my face.
He shut his eyes like he was trying to make me disappear. I wouldn’t grant him that leniency.
“You’re a coward! At least look at me while you break my heart, Lucas! At least give me that!”
He shut his eyes tighter. “I can’t,” he softly spoke.
“Why now? After all this time! Why now? You owe me that!” Tears flowed freely down my face, I didn’t care anymore. I would wear them proudly.
“I’m not good for you.”
I bawled, my vision so blurry I couldn’t see in front of me. My chest heaving so profoundly that I thought I’d never be able to breathe again. “I thought you loved me. You said you loved me.”
“I do. That’s why I’m doing this,” he swallowed.
“So you string me along. All these years all you do is string me along? For what?” I cried. “For what!” I shouted and it echoed around the cab of the truck.
“I’m selfish,” he simply stated and I jerked back, wounded.
I sobbed uncontrollably, I wept so damn hard I felt like my tears would never end. That my pain would never end. I didn’t recognize the boy sitting in front of me with a bowed head and distant demeanor.
He wasn’t my Bo.
Bo wouldn’t allow me to cry. Bo wouldn’t allow me to feel anything other than loved. Bo wouldn’t break my heart and not have the decency to look me in the eyes as he did it. Making me bleed out through tears of despair and longing for a past that would never be a future, for a promise that would never come true.
Lies.
And more lies.
I hyperventilated, taking one last look at him before blankly staring out the window with a hollow feeling building inside me. The emptiness surged from my heart to my entire body, causing me to feel broken and truly alone. I had nothing left to say, nothing left for me to do. I don’t know how long we sat there, both of us lost in our thoughts and disillusions when he put the truck in reverse and drove me home.
He whispered, “I love you. I love you more than I love myself and that’s why I’m doing this. It’s for you, Alex. It’s for you.”
He shattered my heart… again. When I opened the truck door, I slammed it in his face.
I shattered…
His.
The boys went home for summer. I stayed behind and attended a summer session at school. There was no home left for me, I knocked down that house like the big bad wolf I felt I was. I pushed her away and I hated myself for it. She didn’t deserve that. Lily told me that she decided to attend UCLA, California. I told her she needed to find her own way, not a place thirty-three hours and 2,260.7 miles between us.
Giving me a fucking equator of distance.
I guess Aubrey and her were going to share an apartment. Dylan didn’t bat an eye when he told me. As much as he tried to pretend that he didn’t miss her, I knew he was full of shit. He became an asshole to women, a complete and total dick. You would think that would turn women off but it did the exact opposite, they became like a bitch in heat. Constantly wanting more and more of his attention that he wasn’t willing to give.
Austin would be coming back with the boys at the end of summer, except he wasn’t living with us. He decided to live in the dorms. I subconsciously knew that I was the reason for that. Things remained strained with us, and to be completely honest I didn’t give a shit about it. Too many other things plagued my mind.
I sat in front of the TV as I had done so many weekends before, barely watching Sports Center that played in the background of my constantly spinning mind.
My hurricane never lets me go.
It was the price I had to pay…
For letting her go.
My phone rang with my dad’s face lighting up the screen, I hit ignore and let it go to voicemail, but it immediately started ringing again.
“Dad, I’m not in the mood—”
“Lucas,” he said his tone dark and daunting.
I sat straight up on the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“You need to come home.”
“Is everything alright?”
“I don’t want to discuss it over the phone, but you need to come home, Son,” he repeated with the same desperate tone.