The sound of a shutting door had awoken me, and I what I had been met with as I opened my eyes was a brutal ray of sunlight hitting me in the face. In the background, I could hear light footsteps in the kitchen along with some faint sizzling that had soon turned into a nice, pleasant smell. Brushing my messy hair over the back of my head, I sat up with a slight groan and let my eyes search for a clock.
"Noon, eh?" I shrugged my shoulders as the scent of coffee had punched me in the nostrils.
Waking up at the crack of noon hadn't been anything new for me. In fact, it had been earlier than normal, and rarely had I woken up to food being cooked and coffee being made. I stood up, still shirtless, as I headed for the kitchen to see Ava turning off the oven and putting what appeared to be some kind of omelets onto two individual plates. I leaned against fridge silently, watching as she had prepared the meal with a small smile on her face. In that smile had been a sense of happiness, or accomplishment. Honestly, I was too tired to figure out the rest.
Ava turned just as she had been lifting the plates. "Hey, Sleepyhead. Did the couch treat you well?"
"She treated me great, unlike someone I know." I grabbed the plates from her and set them down on the table. "Where's Maggie?"
"She said something about not wanting you to see her that way anymore." Ava pulled out a chair and sat with an expression of pained contemplation. "I can understand that. I wouldn't have wanted Jacky to see me the way I was, either. You want people you love to see you at your best."
"Didn't I already see her worst? How could it get worse than that?" I snickered, taking it upon myself to pour some coffee for the both of us. "The general idea of a relationship is the acceptance of the best and worst of each sides traits, yeah? Leaving or coming as either of those won't change feelings if one side has none left."
"You sure you don't still have feelings for her?" Ava asked as she took a chunk out of the omelet. "Drugs aside, if she asked you to take her back right in front of me, what would your answer be?"
Sitting down and beginning to eat, I took a large bite and followed it up with a gulp of the near black coffee. As the moment of silence had passed, Ava had continued to eye me down, waiting for the answer to her question. Of course, she had likely already known my answer. However, what she had wanted was reassurance. She wanted confirmation, if only to ease the doubt in her mind.
"You know the answer. What's in the past, is in the past. That's where our relationship is staying. If she wants to be friends or something, I'm cool with that, but I have no more feelings for her." I stared into her piercing eyes as I spoke. "I don't know, I think I'm just tired of that life. I'm bored of all the drugs, and pointless sex...
Maybe it's time to move on from Kylie and let go of my memories with her."
"You're wrong, Aiden." Ava wiped the corner of her mouth. "Just because you're moving on doesn't mean that you're letting go of your memories of her, or even forgetting them. Moving on and forgetting are two different things."
"That so, Dr. Phil?" I snickered. "You gonna finish that?"
Had they really been so different, especially in my case? My memories of Kylie had been all or nothing, I hadn't been able to pick one out without remembering the sound of that violent collision. Maybe it really had been better for me to just forget rather than hang onto those dark memories, even if I had to lose the good ones with them. If moving on had meant forgetting it all, the pain, the smiles, and even laughter - would all of the pain and drugs have been worth it?
What about the other way around? Had hanging onto those memories been my better choice? Had keeping the pain, with the smiles and memories, made me who I was? If that was true, had I liked who I was - or rather, who I would become? Had it been about more than pain or even memories at all? As it had always been, doubt was my closest friend - eternally.
Moving on, in essence, is to leave behind. Leaving something behind is to reject, thus had the two been any different from each other? To reject is to push away, and thus leave behind. Forgetting and moving on had been one in the same, synonymous with one another in definition. However, Ava had still been right in some form. You either had to carry the baggage, and throw it away. There hadn't been a happy-medium. It was truly all or nothing.
Remember or forget.
"Wrong. It's Dr. Bourdain." Ava shook her head as one brow lifted higher than other. "You had plenty for yourself, fat-ass. Besides, I waited all morning for you to eat. I'm fucking hungry."
"Rawr." I had let my inner scene girl out, setting my fork down. I grabbed the coffee mug, only to find it empty. "...Where did your parents go, anyways?"
"You really care that much? Back to Nowhere." Ava rolled her eyes, having not withheld her bitterness in the slightest. "They have this small vacation cabin thing there and go every year, even if I beg them to stay. Both of them know how much I hate it, yet they still go."
"Not to say that I do care, but isn't it their choice?" I half-asked. "You have to start looking past that small stuff. It's gonna be your undoing."
"It's not like that. I want them to enjoy themselves, they deserve it, you know?" Ava grabbed both of the empty plates and took them to the sink as she spoke. "I know they shouldn't have to live their lives around me, or how I feel, but I just wish they would listen my feelings about it."
Throughout my life, I had learned many things on my own; simply because I had essentially always been on my own. One thing I had learned quickly through trial and tribulation was simple escapism, or more simply, twisting things around. As a boy, I had done this to make things seem better, like I had something to look forward to. While it hadn't always quite worked out right, it had helped me through those tough times where my young mind couldn't quite understand everything.
It seemed that Ava had needed a little of that.
"Putting it another way...Your parents own the land, right?" I lit my morning cigarette, exhaling slowly into the air. "Then it doesn't have to be that place. Shit, it could be fucking Japan for all I care. My point is that you need to look at stupid shit like that from another angle, instead of getting all angry about something you can't change."
"Stupid shit?" Ava had looked slightly hurt as I put out my cigarette in the nearby ashtray. "...Whatever. You're kinda right, I guess."
"I didn't mean it that way. It's just...small, is the best way to put it, I guess." I had grabbed Ava by her hand, pulling her along with me as I headed to the couch. "Kinda like you, just way less important."
Throwing her lightly onto the couch, I had fallen above her, using my hands to support my weight. Momentarily, everything had become way too real - the soft sunlight hitting her clear skin, the glow in her smile, and even the sparkle of her eye had all gotten to me in that moment. All of my feelings had been so mysterious, as though I had been forced to relearn everything I had already known. Why had it all been so different at that single moment?
Dropping my head, my mouth had met the soft spot in between her neck and shoulder while my right hand had traveled down the deep curve of her thin stomach. Finally stopping at her waist, her hand stopped mine as her back slightly arched upward, causing her chest to hit mine. Had she been telling me to stop? Had I been going too far, too fast?
I lifted my mouth, giving me just enough room to talk. "Should I stop?"
Her face had been a deep red, deeper than anything I had seen on a human in a long time - aside from my own bloody face, that is. Closing her eyes, Ava had taken a deep breath as though she had been collecting enough nerve to say what had been on her mind. Within what had felt like hours, Ava had finally exhaled and opened her eyes. She had clearly calmed herself, and had somehow become more breathtaking; right before my eyes.
"...I'll tell you to stop if I want you to stop." Ava had spoken into my ear. "Just shut up and keep going."
Had it all been moving too fast between us, or had it been appropriate? It had seemed like day after day, we had grown closer and closer, little by little. While it hadn't been long comparatively, it had been a long time for me - someone who had always aimed to get girls in bed on the first day I met them. The drugs and free money had always made it easier for me to get them out of their panties, things I had long thought girls found tough to resist.
How wrong I had been.
Ava, while slowly, had proved every idea of women that I had was wrong. Really wrong. She had never taken the money I had offered her, and only once had she smoked the marijuana I had given her. Had that been what was so different about her? Had that been what had made her feel so special, so unique? It hadn't just been her beauty, or her personality. It had been so simple, yet so complex at the same time. She had been the entire package.
For the longest time, I had thought I'd seen it all with girls. From the sex, to the clothes, and even the way they talked. It had all been so predictable - always, I had been able to predict their next move, whether it had been clothes or what they wanted to do. It had always been the same. I, simply, had figured women out. From feeding them to getting them into bed. All of it had been a simple process, until Ava had come around.
It had only been a little more than a month, yet this had been the first time I was doing anything remotely sexual with her. The weirdest thing had been the fact that I hadn't cared at all. While I had obviously thought about it, I hadn't been occupied with the thought of getting under the covers with her. It had been so much more than that, even since the beginning.
Ava, herself, had been an onslaught of new and old feelings for me.
"Fine."
My lips began to trace the length of her, until they met the lobe of her ear. My senses had been hit like a meteor shower - she had smelled of femininity, so delicate; as though she would have broken within my grasp. Her breathing, while heavy, had given little more than shaky breaths. Ava had been the image of delicacy, yet her emotions, her feelings had been so much stronger. That, more than anything, had been what I felt.
As soon as my hand had been freed from her grip, my fingers began to slither underneath her shirt. Gliding smoothly across the skin of her washboard stomach, I had hit something of a rough patch. Stopping for a quick second, my eyes darted to her own, where I had seen something of a wince come from her face. Just as quickly as I had stopped, I had began to move further upward. It had obviously been better to leave it alone, for her sake.
While my left hand had began to follow suit with my right, my lips followed along her line of her jaw and then met her chin. Letting my instincts take over as my hands had pushed up her shirt, my lips met her chest - which had been covered by a small black bra. Moving down, my hands and mouth had explored the uncharted territory that lied down before them.
Moving slightly, I looked up to see Ava peel off her shirt. They had only been slight, but I had felt every single flinch and tremble. Ava had clearly been nervous, yet she had been pulling through without saying a word - not anything. While I had wanted her to be more active, this had already been more than I could have asked for, given what she had been through in the past. Only time would heal those wounds.
"Ava..." I murmured. "We can always d-"
Ava arched her back, letting her hands slip underneath to unclasp the only thing that had covered her upper body. As it loosened, a strap had slightly fallen off her shoulder and onto her arm. As she pulled off her freshly loosened bra Ava began to let a smile take over her face. Had she gotten past it? Had she overcome her own trepidation of contact in this form?
"I already said it, Aiden." Ava let her hands fall to the front of her jeans, where she slowly teased the button open.
"If I want you to stop, I'll tell you to stop."745Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsz3ff1xxGO
