𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

61.

◈ 𝒃𝒂𝒙'𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒗 ◈

It's been two days since I saw May. I've avoided the beach, knowing she'd spend from dawn until dusk there, praying to see me. I've stayed away from my friends. I've actually travelled up the coast to clear my head. I thought that having May back would clear my mind, make things easier. But it's only made it harder.

Everything I say or do I feel like I'm second guessing. It's like one wrong slip from either of us and our entire future is put on the line. When I said I lived dangerously, I didn't mean it like this. I loved May, but I didn't trust her. I didn't know if I could ever trust her again. She's proven time and time again that she can easily hurt me and not feel shame for it. Always using her mental health as her scapegoat.

Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes love chews you up and spits you out, only creating a worse version of yourself. I never expected that when I met this shy girl months ago, but here we are. Stuck in a constant web of lies. I was tired of being trapped. I needed to free myself. She wanted me to get help.

I call up my sister and talk my feelings out with her. Despite our troubled past—and the distance between us—I knew that I could open up without judgement. May and I's friends felt sympathy for her. They somehow make me feel guilty for my feelings. Wren wouldn't sugar cost things for me. She'd give it to me straight, and that's exactly what I needed.

"So I should do it?" I kick sand around as I wait for my sister's response. She lets the question settle in the air before finally giving me the answer I already knew.

"If you're questioning it, then you know the answer Bax." I nod my head and end the call with my sister before I become a ball of mush with her.

My love for May would never change. But you can love someone and still set them free. You can love someone and decided that they deserve someone other than you. I think getting back together with May had made me realize that sometimes love isn't enough.

I could give her all the love I had to offer and it still would never be enough. If I couldn't make her happy, if I could fulfill her needs then this wasn't going to work. She had proven to me that I couldn't give her what she needed because she had to lie to me in order to get what she wanted. I was done being her scapegoat.

The worst part of this decision was choosing to do it over the phone and not to her face. I knew that if I faced her, I would crack and crumble. I would fall to my knees and beg to be enough. But I could never be enough. Not anytime soon. She had too much to work on, too much to work through. We both did honestly.

She didn't accept it after first. She screamed at me. Then she cried. But never once did she tell me she hated me. Even though I knew she wanted to. Instead though, she hung up before she could let the words fall. She didn't agree, but she didn't have to. I wasn't going back to Shorehaven, I had nothing left there.

I end up back in Queensland. It's the only other place I've known as home. There isn't much left there for me either, but at least I know some people. It was once the place I called home. I continue on with my routine, but I live my life without friends, people. I go at it all alone because at least that way I wouldn't get hurt.

It's hard not to have May, but I don't regret my decision. I don't keep up with any of our friends. I unfollow everyone, I ignore messages or calls. It was easier to cut cold turkey than hold onto a past that pained me. And sure, Queensland also had pain, but it was a pain I could reconcile with.

After two years of running in the pro circuit, I finally make my way back to Shorehaven. Not by choice, more by a bit of chance. Wren and I had grown a lot closer traveling around together. We let the toxic past drift away as we left Elo's bad habits in the past. And it just so happened that Wren, had decided to try her fate with another Shorehaven boy.

She asked me to accompany her on her trip down, so I did—reluctantly. I didn't know who was still around. I didn't ask Wren. I was walking in blind. I knew that I would see some faces, I just wasn't sure who and that scared me. So as we pull up outside of a familiar house my heart sinks. Everything still stings even two years later.

"You don't have to come in, I won't be long." Wren rests her hand on my shoulder. I don't even acknowledge her words as I stare at the front of house I spent too many nights in.

Wren leaves the car without another word, walking up to a house at one point I might have even called my own. My focus is trained on the front door, waiting for it to open, and when it does a pit forms at the bottom of my stomach.

I close my eyes trying to erase the sight from in front of me, but that would make life to easy. My eyes jolt open when there's a knock against my window. I slowly look toward the driver's side window, rolling it down when her face motions for me to do so. I'm still under her spell.

"Changing it up I see." She ruffles her hands in my hair that's back to its normal dirty blonde color. I gave up trying to keep up with it when it reminded me so much of her. It might have been my decision to leave, but I still wished I had her.

"Decided to grow up." That was a bit of the reason as well. I was trying to grow up. I was trying to be a better man. I couldn't say I was succeeding. But Wren would tell you I'm a whole other man.

A figure walks up behind her, wrapping their arms around her waist, like I always had. I look away but it doesn't help the breaking feeling in my chest. I already witnessed what I had been dreading, seeing her with another man. I wasn't strong in those aspects. Not like she was. I still loved her. I'd never get over her. So to see someone else love on her, it would never be easy.

"So, what have you been up to over these past few years?" She rests her elbows against the window sill. Her face falling a bit into car, which I wish it wasn't. I can smell her. Smell the scent that always had me entranced with her. Nothing had changed.

"Surfing. That's it." That had been it.

"It's in your blood." She chuckles and I can't help but look over to see the smile I loved crack across her face. As much as it makes me want to smile back, I can't. I can't even make this more than a one sided conversation. I didn't even want to be here.

"Well, we should get going. We're meeting Wren at the restaurant." May stands up and wraps her arms around the man tucked so tightly to her. It's almost as if she's doing this on purpose. Still unchanged it seems. Still trying to manipulate her way in.

I wave them off not saying another word. I don't even look at them as I do. I can't bear to see what the man looks like. I don't want to see the man who took my girl. She was supposed to be mine forever. But here we were a broken hearted mess that no one could clean up.