The Probability Of Not Loving You

Chapter 12: Before

Still got a heart-shaped bruise
That's how I remember you
Thinking of you
Am I thinking of you?

- Thinking of you, Elias
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Before~ 22 years old

"Are you a prince?"

The girl on his lap gushed over him. After a couple of drinks he was a little more receptive. Well, after watching Ava dancing all over Trevor and kissing him in ways that Alex didn't have to wonder what was going to happen when they left together, he did everything to get her out of his mind. Alex heard it all. That first year it felt like she wanted him to know everything that she did in her bedroom. She was a screamer. That was something that he didn't know about her.

Thoughts of what Ava and Trevor were doing put him in a fit of rage, yet he couldn't show it. The worst thing that he could do was to let it show that he wanted her. He wanted her like oxygen. He always found her in a crowd and did everything he could to peel his eyes away from her. He was lucky that she didn't look at him. If she watched him as she had in the past, she would have known that he was just as in love with her as she had been. All hope was not yet lost, was it? He could literally count the months until graduation in his fingers.

He survived that far, through all the times that he nearly told her everything and each time that he nearly kissed her, telling himself that he never said he wasn't attracted to her, so what would it hurt? It would hurt her. It would hurt his mother. He made a promise which he threatened to break every single day with how much he missed and wanted her, but nonetheless kept.

Alex had forgotten what she felt like and that zing that went through their fingers which sent her into shock near killed him. He saw it in her eyes, she thought she alone was feeling it. More than anything Alex just wanted to forget the tears in Ava's eyes earlier and the touch which nearly made him tell her everything.

He appreciated the distraction the girl with him offered but truthfully, he just wanted to be alone. Yet, Ava had called him out on not dating. He had broken up to see other people and yet Ava had dated far more than he had. In truth, she had taken his words out of context but what could he do? Their lives was a misery no matter what he did. Correcting her would have led to more confusion about why they were apart. It was not like they could be together. It hurt that they hardly said two words to each other but there had been wisdom in his mother's words— a wisdom that hurt more than it was worth. Why couldn't Ava be friends? If only he had that little bit off her, things would have been so much easier to endure.

The girl ran her hands through his hair, while her mouth kissed him along his jaw. His mind was so far that he had forgotten that someone was on him until she did that. Across the room, his friends were looking at him like a dog. He wasn't really. He had a reputation for one night stands and encounters that were never more. It was always when Ava pushed him too far or when he was at the brink of breaking and needed someone to hold him back and help release all his charged energy. Like in that moment.

"No."

After about three drinks the music made his heart  beat fast to its rhythm. Her hands travelled to his arms, she stopped and looked into his teal blue eyes. She stared at him dreamily and all he saw were reflections of Ava when she still touched him like that. Alex found Ava in every girl who touched him, not that it was fair to them, not that he had any choice in the matter, he had just been wired that way since that first time that she kissed him and dared him to take her virginity. Hadn't things always been that way with them? Alex never felt strongly about a lot of things while Ava was passionate in nearly everything she did. It made it easier to go along with her choices as he didn't care one way or another. He gave a damn about her dammit, why couldn't she see that?