"...Aiden." Ava had almost appeared shaken, but had managed to hold back. "Why did you tell me all that?"
"Yeah, I didn't even know some of that." Mack added.
While I had told them almost the whole truth, I had left out one detail - Crest. He hadn't been someone that you talked about with a free tongue and got away with. That, and he had been unnecessary to Ava. While I had hired Mack a few times, he had never met Crest, and I had hoped that he had gotten the point of why I hadn't brought him up. Crest hadn't been someone that I wanted Ava to meet, ever.
"You were honest with me." I lit and inhaled the cigarette smoke, holding my breath for a moment. "I only did the same."
Mentally, I had laughed. While Ava had been honest about one of the darkest moments of her life, I had given her my own life story. My almost-suicide, cheating on Maggie, and even almost killing someone. Ava, while I hadn't been able to put my finger on it, had been something completely different from me - a different breed - a different way of life. There had been no way that she could have understood all of what I had said, no matter how hard she tried.
The simple fact of the matter had been that we were from two completely different worlds, completely different lives. Yet, there she had been in front of me. Not running, not crying, nor had she held doubt towards me - at least from what I had been able to read.
"That much was obvious." Ava peeked at Mack, stepping forward to me as she hit the cigarette out of my hand and pulled my mouth to hers, connecting her lips to mine. Interwoven, our tongues had been at war, fighting for dominance over one another. Violent, yet somehow beautiful. Violent, yet somehow lovely. Pointless, yet somehow amazing.
Just as she had ended our kiss by pulling her mouth away, thunderous booms and bright, crackling lights had filled the sky - lights so bright that, even if only for a moment, had blinded the darkness in me. Even if it had been momentary, I had been able to see Ava's face with the brightest smile I had ever seen on a human being. It had a been a moment that was so sensitizing.
I had been desensitized to the world, to my own and others emotions, love. It had all felt so pointless for so long, to feel had been to slowly kill myself and any part of me that had wanted to still live. It had always been the same thing. I had fought my own war, the same war, day after day. Foolishly, I had expected different results, or a different ending. Yet, that difference never came. Same shit, different war.
Had I only been destined for dirt? That had been something I had wondered on a nightly basis. Had I been worth anything to anyone, or had I driven everything away? Had I driven myself away from myself? Had I reached a point that I been so scared of myself that I hadn't wanted to return to being normal?
Was I scared of what the world, and the future, had to offer me? Had I been so scared of the unknown that I had shut myself off from anything dangerous to me or my feelings and emotions? Had shutting myself off from the world been for the better, where I could live without feeling pain and sorrow, guilt and loathing?
That couldn't have been it. No way.
"By the way," I smiled, letting go of Ava and watching her fall a short distance to the ground. "Don't hit my cigarette out of my hand."
Ava stayed put, holding an expression of contemplation between laughter and pain. "Asshole."
"Never claimed I wasn't." I responded, grabbing my phone as it buzzed in my pocket.
It had been a text from Mack, telling me that he hadn't wanted to get in the way and that he would be starting back at our school when it started back up. Giving a short response, understanding why he had left, I put my phone back in my pocket. That was when I found Ava staring at me, questioningly, for reasons unknown. As her thin hips rocked from left to right, she had lost her smile.
She hadn't held a frown, nor had she held a smile. As the fireworks had still pounded sparingly through the skies, Ava had seemed to have lost the glow she had only moments earlier. Had she been angry? Had I lost my ability to read people, or had I been afraid to dig too deep into Ava, fearing what I may have found? Again, the unknown had reared its ugly head.
Without a moments notice, all I had seen was a flash of white. Ava had smacked me square across the face. She had not held back one ounce, and had thrown everything she had at me in the open palm of her right hand. I stood shocked, yet not surprised - only wondering why she had done it at that moment and not earlier.
"That was for all the fucked up shit you did. You were the worst." Ava slowly rested her fingers on the cheek she had just smacked. "I don't know why you told me all of that, but it answers a lot for me, like that tattoo on your forehead and why you are always walking behind people. But what it really tells me is that you're trying, Aiden."
"Trying?" I nearly choked. "Haven't I been doing that since this whole thing started?"
"Not for me. You're trying to get better for yourself." Ava answered. "I don't care who you were or how you acted with either of those two. I don't care how much you loved them, or still love them. I only care about the you that's here. The you that's right in front of me, right now."
"...Stop." I averted my eyes, gripping my shoulder as though I had been intent on ripping off my arm.
However, Ava hadn't stopped. She had only continued to be honest, brutally so. "I don't know what it is about you that I can't stop thinking about, that I can't stop smiling about. I don't know how to feel about all of the things you said, but even then, I'm still so attracted to you."
Ava let her hand fall to her side. A moment of silence passed through the night, leaving only the sound of fireworks in the background. It hadn't been awkwardness, nor had it been sadness. It had been something more than that - a deep-seeded darkness that had finally come to light, true feelings and emotions being set on the table. It had been a moment of reality, an unsheathed truth.
"Honestly? You scare the shit out of me, Aiden. I can't help myself when I'm with you. I feel like when I'm around you, my control is gone. I feel like the words I say aren't things I would say. The things I do aren't things that I would do. There isn't anything to hold onto when I'm around you, it's like I'm free-falling without an end." Ava looked at me, nervously, as though she hadn't been sure that her words had gotten out right. "I'm scared of what I become with you, but I'm not going to run from you because of that. I don't want you to run from me, either, Aiden. We both have our demons, and struggles-"
"Don't act like you know me, Ava." I felt myself begin to turn off, the ice inside of my veins running rampant. "You and I aren't similar...you had a bad moment. I've lived a life doing nothing of value. You don't understand what it's like to kill the only thing that has ever truly loved you."
The knife had been resharpened, and stabbed right into my own back.
Except, I had done it to myself. Had I been so bent on being alone, that I had to drive away every single living thing that had held some sort of feeling towards me? Ava had seen the true colors, the sharp tongue of a defeated child whom had been ruined from birth. I was just a slowly decaying mess of a human being.
If hadn't been me, then something would have driven her away from me. What had been the point of getting close to something that would leave as soon as it had come? Ava, as a person, had deserved someone that could give her as much love as she had given. That person had not been me, and it likely never would have been. The both of us had been better off splitting ways before we had grown attached to the small things.
She would have found better, and I would have been able to fall back into the grave I had dug for myself so long ago. It would have been better if I had just dissipated from the world, than to be a burden to everyone in it. Why had I come out of my grave to begin with? Had been to get into bed with Ava, and that was it? What had made me crawl out of the black hole - the abyss that was my heart?
Had it been the source of light that I hadn't seen in so long, or had it been the mysterious familiarity around her? Ava had dragged me out, and it had taken me this long to figure out that I had been in the wrong place, the wrong world altogether. I deserved the darkness. I deserved the loneliness. I deserved the emptiness. I had deserved to be alone for eternity, to rot and decay for the world that had so blatantly forbidden me. My home was within myself, caged within the protection that was my frozen heart. It had been my only way to live - hidden and on autopilot.
...Then reality swung a nice one at me, waking me up from a daydream.
"I'm scared of what I become with you, but I'm not going to run from you because of that. I don't want you to run from me, either, Aiden. We both have our demons and struggles, but I want to deal with them together, even if we don't have anyone else."
Had I imagined all of that? Why had it all felt so real? Had that been what I felt towards Ava, or something I would have said to her? Brushing my hair over the back of my head, I stumbled slightly to my right, feeling a dizziness take over me - as though I had been about to fall flat on my face. I had begun to slightly shiver, nauseous at the smell of my own cigarette smoke.
"Aiden? Are you okay?" I heard Ava ask as I had only then began to regain my wits. "Hey, answer me. I'm going to c-"
"I'm fine, Ava. Just a little lightheaded." I stood back up, studying her fretful expression.
A sudden chill had went down my spine. What was that? I had been fine, used loosely, a moment ago and then all of sudden I had felt this weird feeling of vertigo. Had it been that vision that caused it, or had it been a simple case of being lightheaded? Passing it off as the latter, I walked up to Ava and brushed her hair away from her eyes.
Had I actually been ready to say all of that? Would I ever say that?
I hadn't been. The familiarity, the closeness, and even the feeling of life within me had began to come alive once again. I had somewhat grown used to seeing the smile on her face, the crescent shape of her eyes. I hadn't been ready to lose them, or her. I wanted to see more of her smiles, more of her expressions, and even the darkness that had come with her. I had wanted all of it, and more. There had been no reality in which I had said that to her.
"I promise, I'm fine." I lowered my upper body until I was at eye-level with her.
Looking into Ava's eyes, however, had made it clear that she was paying no attention to me. She had been staring over my shoulder at something - or rather, someone. Deciding to look for myself, I had slowly turned, and saw the one person I had least expected to see at that moment. Why, of all places, had she shown up in right where I had been? Had she been looking for me, or had it been something much larger at hand?
"Maggie?" I asked, unsure of the rail-thin figure I had seen before me.
Seconds later, my suspicions had been answered with pitch-black hair and the same glowing eyes that I had remembered. It had, indeed, been Maggie - who was clearly higher than a kite and desperate for something. I stopped, exhaling a sigh of something that rested in between relief and anger.
Maggie stood, shivering as she itched her arm. "I need your help."
ns 15.158.61.8da2
