pretty chapped lips : malum :

0.8

dedication to my wonderful, wonderful idiot @BrokenTail-lights thank you for reading and being such amazing support for me throughout the years x

Ever since then, things changed. I didn't wait for him every night; though, as I did stare out my window for hours on end, I had hopes his shadow may creep by. Every Tuesday and Thursday I still stared out the window, but I saw him less and less often than before.  

Part of me knew it was for the best if he were to disappear from my life. Sleepless nights would be better wasted on self-loathing, ton thoughts that circle my mind like water to the drain as I fall into the gutter: rather than following around someone who remains nameless. Afternoons in English class would be better spent staring down at my hands (rough fingertips, little scars that I can't remember picking glass from weeks to months ago) because my father ruined my copy of The Great Gatsby rather than watching the boy on the other side of the window.

Most of all, my mind would be better off not running in continuous loops to remember I face I should never have noticed to begin with. 

But the rest of my mind knew that at this point, he was quite possibly one of the few things keeping me from feeling so numb. 

Id sit with my best friend as he'd ramble about the oh so bright green eyed boy two years above and ask myself if that's what I would be like. If I just made a move to speak instead of listen, to act instead of watch, perhaps I could share with him the tale of the boy with the pretty chapped lips that's cigarette smoke clouds my mind. But I knew I wouldn't speak of him. I did not want to become like one of those teenage girls that talk about a crush and obsess over them like they're an object of lust. With their oh my god's, and I think it's love's. I could never do that. But maybe that was just because i wanted to keep him for myself. 

So, perhaps I lied. Because, maybe I still looked. I did not spend hours sitting on the front step where I couldn't see my hand before my very own eyes -but, I couldn't help the way my eyes would flicker to the window in search of his shadowy figure in the night as I hid away in my bedroom. And maybe even though I did not stare out the window of my classroom in search of him, I still noticed his fingers running through his hair out of the corner of my tired eyes. 

Maybe it was because I was trying not to look. Maybe it was because i made the point to keep my eyes on my work that I stopped seeing him out the window as often. Or perhaps, just maybe he was coming less and less often. 

The days I did see him he seemed to be waiting for longer, burning through more cigarettes and a frown appearing as time went on. I wanted to question it, I wanted to know why he was waiting there for longer, why the beautiful boy with curly hair two years above didn't jump into his arms where he stood waiting. 

"They had a fight!" Luke told me with his eyes shining bright, clutching a binder to his chest filled with pretty doodles and pretty words to pass his pretty pink lips. 

I wasn't listening as he rambled, I didn't care to know who he spoke off. But still he proceeded to speak, telling me in detail about the boy two years above who is the centre of my friends love.  

Id ask him what he was talking about as he walked down the halls, but then he paused. Eyebrows furrowed as if in surprise that his words had become nothing more than smoke drifting past to me. As his oh so bright blue eyes rolled I pulled down the sleeves that covered unfortunate arms as he explained. His voice was slow, to the point as if he was talking to a goddamn child. 

"Ashtons boyfriend."

-

A/N we're getting so close to the meeting i can taste it, can you taste it? probably not because you don't know when it is but i do and i caN TASTE IT

like always vote, comment and tell me what you think!

until next time, my loves

-rachel x