Open [boyxboy] ✓

forty-eight:: when you take a big step.

[ Milo; Skyline To by Frank Ocean]

FORTY-EIGHT: when you take a big step.

"Can we talk?" He'd finally stopped crying. Throughout the time of being with Paul, I'd never seen him so upset, never seen him this hurt and I knew he wasn't lying when he said this was affecting him too. To hear that he'd been crying nonstop since he'd left, that hurt me.

Maybe that's why when he asked to talk, I'd been open to it,  he'd stayed in Cali an extra week and it had been nearly four days since our last conversation, just hearing his voice would clarify things at the least. And I missed him, I just missed being around him.

"Yeah." We were still holding each other, his hands playing with mine and he would look at me, at some point we'd shifted to my bed and despite wanting him in my arms, I stayed sitting upright.

It was silent as Paul thought, opening his mouth a few times as if to start and then almost as if he thought better of it, he would stop. He did this a few times and I couldn't see how bloodshot his eyes were until he'd looked up at me, a few tears falling and he went to wipe them away. "I'm sorry for everything."

I loved him so much, I did and times like this made me wonder if he loved me too. My heart hurt, it had been hurting for a while and I could barely breathe let alone think. And then it hit me, I didn't know if Paul was telling the truth, I didn't know Paul nor did I know what he was hiding or what lies he could tell. Even if I trusted him, I had to be wary, he wasn't as stable as I thought he was.

His brown eyes were filled with sincerity, "And I mean it, I didn't mean to hurt you and I definitely didn't mean to make you feel as if I don't want this because I do." Swallowing through the knot in his throat, he gasped out a bit, shaking his head when I went to speak. "I wanna be with you, Jules."

I wanted to be with him too but how could I be with someone who didn't have the same feelings for me? Someone who could simply push me away and refuse to tell me about something that had him shaking and crying, especially when it could've broken us up. Did he even care?

"Do you love me?"

And he looked as if he didn't want to answer that, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to hear the answer. He seemed to think, to really think about that and his eyes wouldn't meet mine. It'd been a few seconds before he started to shake his head, getting worked up again, "I- I don't know."

I wasn't sure what the feeling that surfaced after that was but I knew that this relationship had to be going somewhere. "Do you see yourself loving me?" If Paul couldn't at least see him developing those feelings for me later on, I couldn't be in this relationship. Over the time I'd spent with my therapist analyzing shit -and talking about my relationship recently since that'd been a reason for my behavior the past week- I'd come to the conclusion that I really craved that attention, I needed constant validation.

My dad had made me go to a session due to missing the one prior throughout the time after Paul and I's talk. My therapist, she'd expressed some concern for the way my relationship was going and although normally I wouldn't have given that thought... I needed answers, everything was just too confusing.

"Of course I do." He'd answered almost immediately, my heart hammering in my chest at his words and all the emotions behind them, "I see myself spending the rest of my life with you." His eyes bore into mine, his thumb going to brush over my left ring finger never moving his gaze from mine.