the stars in your eyes | t.s. one shots

i remember it

the memories come in flashbacks, moments that echo around in my  brain, haunting me like a spirit of lovers past.

the day i first met him. the way he made my stomach turn to butterflies. oh, i felt like i could hardly breathe. he made me feel special, he said i was mature. he said that nobody else my age could write a song like i could, with brilliant imagery and beautiful metaphors. he said i was pretty, he said it right when i needed to hear it. only hours after i had frowned at my reflection in the mirror as i tried to tame my blonde curls into something presentable for a public event. as i tried to cover every blemish on my skin with foundation so that nobody would know just how unpretty i felt, mere hours before the heel of my pumps hit the pavement of the new york city street. by the end of the night, he was finding an excuse to weave his fingers through mine. i was finding an excuse to rest my head on his shoulder, with my heart pounding faster than it ever had before. he told me he wanted to see me again, and i told him i thought i could make that happen.

maybe it was for the best. maybe we were doomed to fail from the start. star-crossed lovers, or something like that.

when i first spent the night. he made me feel safe, played my favorite vinyl in the background, turned up the heat when i said i was chilly. he said that it was okay that i didn't want him to take off my clothes quite yet. he said maybe i'd get there eventually, but i didn't have to if i wasn't ready. i knew i wasn't that night. he just gave me a blanket, wrapped me in his arms, and told me he loved me anyway. nobody had ever said those words to me before. not like that. little did i know he'd never say them again. not even when i finally was ready. a month later, when i opened up that last little piece of myself, one that i had never given to anybody before. but he made everything feel so right that first evening. we baked cookies at midnight when i couldn't sleep. he spun me around in the light of the refrigerator and hugged me from behind as i mixed the dough. he snuck in extra chocolate chips and let me lick the mixing spoon. i don't care what he thought or what anybody else thought, i really did feel loved. that night, everything felt so perfect.

maybe i should've seen it coming. if i were smarter, maybe i would've.

a week before he walked out, when it all really started to fall apart. we fell for each other quickly, but the demise happened even faster, like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass. he pulled my body closer to him, i rested my head against his bare chest, cozy under his duvet. he told me that he was sorry for what he said, telling me he didn't like the song i'd written for him. well, he didn't say that exactly. he said it wasn't his style and that it wasn't worth the scar i got changing my d string when it broke while i was writing it. he realized that it had upset me as soon as he said it. he had apologized about ten million times in the hours between then and when we went to sleep. he told me he wanted me to come to the basement concert he was going to tomorrow. he said nobody would recognize me there, it was a place where we could just be us. he never did like the publicity that came with my name, something that i couldn't help no matter how hard i tried.

maybe i liked the idea of him more than i actually liked him. he was cultured, smart. he followed politics, loved to read. he knew lots of things and had seen lots of places.

the weekend that he rented the cabin in upstate new york. for a break from the hustle and bustle of the city. he said we all needed a break sometimes, even though i didn't want to go with him. he said it was already paid for. "you drive," he told me. "fuck the patriarchy. you drive this time." i told him i didn't know the area. i told him i wasn't comfortable on these backroads, but he threw the keys at me anyway. they fell at my feet despite my best efforts to catch them.  i took a wrong turn somewhere. i didn't know where we were, and neither did he. all he wanted was to go to a coffee shop and we were suddenly stranded in the middle of nowhere, no cell service and no map. i knew he was mad. i hated myself for it too. i asked him to take over in the driver's seat and he agreed that might be for the best. we kept blindly driving until i got cell service so that we could figure out where we were. once he knew how to get back to the cabin, he didn't say a word to me for the rest of the drive.  

i should've seen the signs. looking back at it all, they were there long before i started to realize them.

the day that everyone found out about us. he said we could keep it as our little secret. keep it as clandestine meetings. i hadn't told a soul, it was an oath i wasn't going to break. my parents didn't even know until everyone else in the world. when it made the front page of the tabloid. "how did they know? it's been two weeks since we met. i didn't tell a soul." he finally admitted that he told his friends his secret. one of them must have spilled the news. he wouldn't press them any further to find out which one. he didn't seem to care, not like how i cared. my friends were hurt and my parents were livid. everyone had to find out from a magazine. i wanted telling everyone to be something special, not something leaked as the latest headline on a newsstand. all he did was tell me to relax. he said if we fell apart because of it, then it just wasn't meant to be. that, i guess he was right about. it wasn't meant to be.

when it broke apart, it burned down in flames. i thought my world was going to stop spinning. i didn't know how i was going to go on. i thought he was the one. i had given him every piece of me, just for him to break those pieces apart and shatter them on the ground.

the day he ended it. i wasn't surprised. it had been a long time coming. that didn't make it hurt any less. i had hoped we could work it out, talk like mature people do. he always said that i was mature. i guess he didn't really mean it. he said he couldn't go on with somebody so young, so unexperienced. he said it was a hard decision, choosing to end it, but the way he instantly asked me to leave made me think otherwise. the way he said it without an ounce of remorse in his voice. i ripped off the locket he gave me, and it fell down, hitting the hardwood floor before i ran out, not bothering to zip up my coat despite the nippy brooklyn air. he left me to cry in my car, parked on the street outside of his apartment. i pressed my forehead against the top of the steering wheel and let the tears fall. he knew i didn't have a place in new york, knew i'd have to get a hotel until i could arrange for a plane back to nashville. i knew in that moment, as the first snowflakes of winter began to hit my window shield, that i'd never be quite the same. guitar strings wear out after they're played. maybe heartstrings are the same way. he'd played them, worn them down, and left me alone to repair the damage. i couldn't believe how stupid i'd been, to believe that someone like him could actually love someone like me. i knew time would heal, but in that moment, it felt like that pain would never leave, that it would last forevermore.

in the end, i grew. i lived and i learned. but the whirlwind time that i had with him will be ingrained in my brain forever.

i remember it all too well.