Author: Freelancer Starbuck
Website: www.geocities.com/freelancer_starbuck
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: YEAH BABY!
Archiving: Up for grabs as long as you tell me where it's going!
Rating:
Summary:
Author's Note:
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My heart is stuck to the bottom of his shoe like an old wad of gum, and every step he takes, away from me, away from the world we could (should) have had, makes the world hurt. I want to run away by his side, but I can't, I know I can't, and I won't because I know I can't.
My eyes sting as he runs away from the best he's ever had, but the sharp pain in my chest is nothing compared to what I know will come. What will come when the realization falls over me like a brick wall, when I get to run from the world in the same direction as him, but never catching up.
I scream.
He stops, turns on his heel, and glares through my eyes. He cuts right through my resolve.
"Give me a reason. Tell me to stay."
My eyes slip closed, I let a tear fall. Only one, because two means three, and three means four, and four means countless more will follow.
"Why do you need a reason. Aren't I enough of a reason for you to keep going?"
He's quiet, eerily quiet considering the outburst of only five minutes before. "I don't know anymore. I can't..."
"You can't what, Michael?" It occurs to me that I've never used his first name. It feels natural. Right. "You can't commit? You can't let yourself feel after four fucking years and so much shit? You can't let us be just Michael and Sydney? Stop running away!" My knees go weak, and I let myself fall to the ground. I want to be in control, but I know it's impossible. I've already lost the little control I have.
He's in front of me in a second, his hand on my arm. I know he doesn't like it when I cry. He's told me before. "I'm scared, Syd. It's been so long. I want to believe that this is still the only real thing in my life, but what if it's just reflex? What if we're so used to loving each other that it's become something we convince each other of, something to lean on to keep going?"
"How can you even think that?" My voice is a dangerous whisper. He doesn't trust me, he doesn't trust himself. "It's not just pretend when you touch me, when you look at me like you want to kiss me but don't. We're not normal, we both know that, but why not give it a chance? Why not see if these feelings are real?" The fourth tear is long gone, and I can't keep the rest inside.
The pad of his thumb sweeps across my cheek, collecting the sharp salty tears and guiding them away from my face. "Okay."
I let my body go limp across his chest, drawing in his scent and memorizing the way he looks from this position through red-rimmed eyes. "Why?"
This word expresses all the questions that I still have, and they spill out of my eyes, deciphering my vague message for him. Why did we have to wait? Why didn't we know? Why didn't we care?
"Because," he answers, brushing a kiss to my ear, then my forehead. He dips down and catches my lips in a kiss full of uncertainty, fear, apprehension, but most of all, love. This time I don't have to convince myself that it's all going to be ok.