To The Moon and Back

𝟏𝟖 | 𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐦

A T O M

The basic building block of matter.

T O  T H E 
M O O N & B A C K

WE WALK SIDE by side down the eerie street. Neither of us has spoken in the last fifteen minutes and not one of us have spoken up about where we are going. I don't know where the fuck I am and I don't think that she does either. I don't ask, though. I don't care where we're going or where we end up.

Every house we pass has all of its lights off and the asphalt is wet. Every few seconds, I step in a puddle settled in the dips in the road. It smells like rain and I know it's only a matter of time before it starts again.

I know she's pissed off at whatever happened between her and her friend—or whatever they are—once I left, but I can tell she doesn't want to talk about it and I don't bother bringing it up because I don't want to force her. I know how fucking annoying it is when someone tries to talk to you about something you're trying to bury.

I like the silence between us but it's starting to get too loud. I'm high and I'm even more hypersensitive to my surroundings. The sound my throat makes every time I swallow, my breathing, her breathing, the way my shoes squeak with every step due to the water in them. It's like she can sense I'm getting irritated because she finally speaks up.

"Do you think I was being petty by kissing you just to piss Ophelia off?" 

I chew on the inside of my cheek, nodding my head. "Yeah," I say and I hear her suck in a sharp intake of air. "But that doesn't mean I think it was wrong."

I see her nod slightly and I can't tell whether she likes that answer, or hates it. "We have this confusion fucking situationship and I know the purpose of a situationship is for it to not be established or whatever, but it's so fucking confusing." she begins to ramble heatedly and usually I don't give a shit—when Alula tries to talk to me about this stuff I walk out and slam the door, but this time I listen. "She doesn't want to be with me but she doesn't want to be without me, either. And I don't want to be with her more than a friend, but I don't want her with someone else. Does that make sense?"

It does. Pandora and I had the same thing going for three years too fucking long. Except she did want to be official, but with that being said, she didn't want all of me. She wanted the good part of me, and there's no good there. So, really, she just wanted me but not me at all. 

Sometimes I found myself wanting to be more than. . .whatever the hell we were, too. But it was only in the moments where I sought comfort that I couldn't find in no amount of sleep nor drug. I loved her in the moments that I needed human touch. In retrospect, that sounds really shitty, and that's because it is really shitty, but we're both shitty people. Which makes the entire concept less shitty.

Poetic.

"Yeah." I agree. "It does."

Rory sighs in relief, like she had been hoping for that answer. "Then, why?" she asks.

I think the question is more so one directed toward herself, but nonetheless, I answer. "It's comfort. It's familiarity. It's hard to leave someone because even though they fucked you up, they stayed. And for some reason, that's good enough for you to stay too."

Her entire body sighs and I feel the high slipping away like sand through my fingers as the heaviness of my sadness prepares to close over me again. Just leave me be. Just for a little longer.

It never listens.

"How do you know this?" she asks. "I thought you never had a girlfriend."

I turn to face her as we continue to walk down the vacant street, fog passing through our lips with every exhale. "How did you make that assumption?"