Passenger | Unedited Version

chapter twenty | tell me why

chapter twenty | tell me why

Life after saying those three magic words isn't all that different than before I said it, surprisingly enough.

I always thought that by saying those words, I would unlocked a doorway in our relationship that I would never be able to close again and since I stepped into that bright life, my life would feel that much real. Isn't saying I love you meant to make things more complicated, producing a feeling of all or nothing in your heart? Sort of like your fight or flight instincts, knowing that you're in a mutual relationship full of love is supposed to have a similar effect. I was ready to have to face a new age of our relationship, one that would change the way I look at life and they way I think about Indie.

Instead, things haven't changed all that much. Maybe it's the fact that it's only been a week since that fateful night and that isn't enough time for things to drastically change, but it's just weird that so much has happened but nothing seems to have. Indie is still Indie and I'm still me.

Just like most of the days that we spend together, we're hiding from the rest of the world in Indie's bus and doing absolutely nothing productive. We never do anything productive while we're in here, always getting too distracted by how the world seems to stop spinning when we're around each other and my thoughts on a new flavor of lip gloss that Indie's adores so much. Man, her lip gloss has to be on the top ten list of things I would never change about her in a million years. You have no lived until you get a girlfriend who asks you to try out a new tube of lip gloss nearly every day, which is literally just her telling you to kiss her.

I'm not complaining about always being in the bus with Indie, as those stolen moments in there are my favorite ones to think back on when the sun goes down and my body won't let me sleep. Anything is possible in that bus, like I can say anything that ever dares to leap into my mind and there isn't a single person to judge me on the content. I don't have to prove myself to anyone, as the only person I care about is Indie and she already said that she loves me for who I am, so I have no reason to stress anymore.

Indie runs her fingers through my hair, setting all of the knots free before she bunches it all together again. Ever since she did it that first night, she hasn't stopped braiding my hair and then undoing it right after without a pause. It might be because of the fact that I usually always wear my hair in a thin braid now, but I can't be too positive about it. Indie says that it's a good look for me, so I think that it's going to stick around for awhile.

While she's doing this, there isn't anything for me to do but talk to her.

I've already covered the basics with her, as I know exactly how her day has been and that the weather is glorious, especially considering how gross the weather used to be like in Maryland around this time of the year last summer. We've talked so much over the past however long it's been since we've met, I think that we've run out of new things to talk about without retelling the same story over and over again. Or maybe it's just the simple fact that I'm an incredibly boring person by nature and the subject of our talks always comes down to me, which isn't the best idea in the world. I should really work on thinking about things to talk about, without having to mentally jump off a bridge and think about how much of an idiot I am.

Like always, a little something always comes to me sooner or later.

"Did you expect for all of this to turn out differently?"

"What do you mean by that?" She questions me, not really getting the point of my question. I should have probably have phrased the question in other words, as Indie can never understand me when I talk like this and I can never understand her when she talks in that dreamy voice of hers. Sometimes it's hard to communicate, but isn't that the same for every couple?