Collateral Damage

18

Alexander stared at his bedroom ceiling. Of all the weird, targeted things Audrey had said about him, and his childhood one thing stuck with him. It wasn't even something she'd said maliciously and maybe that's why it stuck with him. No she'd said it while dipping a McDonald's fry into ketchup.

"You looked down her didn't you? Your mom?"

And then she never elaborated, chomping contentedly on her fry. He did. He did, he looked down on her, with his father, because it was the only way to elevate himself to be like him. She would say something desperately broken and sad and he would exchange a look with his father. As if he were something different, as if he didn't feel abandoned. As if they were not both dusty trophies in that house.

And it seemed the two of them agreed that Alexander's mother was a particular shade of blue that neither of them carried, and that she had become that way of her doing. And yet, it didn't save him, from turning that same shade. So what was the point?

He got up, throughly disturbed, venturing into the basement of his house, to the family portrait that laid there discarded. He cleared his throat, and for the first time in a long time spoke to his mother.

He apologized for the way he treated her. He informed her he understood that she could not love him, and that he was rather unloveable as he was, anyway. He frowned and remarked coldly that she could've tried and then apologized for that.

And then he left her, as everyone did, resigned, turning the lights out on her existence once more, and like that, Alexander finally came to terms about what he was.

He was a broken shell of a man, hiding a broken child inside him. He was not instinctively incapable of love.

He had never felt it. He didn't know what it looked like. So he strayed to Audrey's room, his Audrey. He decided if he'd ever shown love, it would be his relationship with Audrey. His boundless patience and affection for her. The selfish and yet, selfless way he gave to her. And how good it felt to do it. So then...

But no. No. He probably didn't love her.

If he did, he wouldn't treat her the way he did, would he? He wouldn't have taken her friend away, isolated her, forced her to work, forced her under his name, under his thumb, under his sight. He wouldn't have fucked her.

He never would've fucked her, if he'd truly cared, not as it was.

Audrey was sitting up in guest room bed when he opened the door.

"What is it, Steel?"

Alexander didn't know, he sat next to her on the bed and Looked over at her, at her glittering eyes, and those pretty full lips, hiding that slick tongue. That warm mouth—

"Steel?" She snapped her fingers in front of him with a frown, leaning closer to him

And before he could reconcile what he was doing his hands where on her face and his lips smashed against hers in a desperate bid for affection. And she let him, as she always did, as he always knew she would.

Maybe he didn't know much about love and affection, and what that meant, truly. And maybe when she was done hurting, done growing, when she'd outgrown him and moved on, and flitted away out of his sight to live a full, successful life he'll run into her.

Maybe things would be different, and maybe he could smile and not want to kiss her as much as he did now. But the more he thought about, the more he put years between them the more he realized–maybe he didn't exactly love her. Maybe that wasn't really something he could ever obtain. But he knew she would never be someone that he didn't like, no matter how many years passed, or how much space and distance and time and bad decisions was between them.

He would always like her.

Like her snarky remarks, like the way she did her hair, the way she held her mouth when she was thinking, the way she wore her jeans frayed, the way she knew everything wrong with him, but never ran away screaming.

He liked her.

"I like you," he whispered.

Audrey shook her head silently. "Alexander, no."

He pulled back a bit his hands cupping her face with a small frown. She never called him Alexander.

"What? What do you mean no?"

"No," she whispered.
"I like you," he insisted, pressing his forehead against hers, his lips ghosting over hers. "I even lov—"

"Stop. You're being mean."  She shuddered. He leaned back and for a moment, thought of all the times he'd said the exact opposite of what he was saying right now.

How he'd assured her he could never have genuine affection of her, how he'd almost ridiculed her for ever thinking it possible. So he nodded and kissed her head.

"I am aren't I?" He whispered, kissing her cheek and laying next to her. They were quiet for a moment, a silence fraught with a gentle ache.