why we fall apart

nineteenth ; why we fall apart

"She died."

The air was still, silence reigning in the room, as it had been since we kissed. We hadn't talked about it once. Simply walked with each other back to our room and sat on separate sides, hurting inside. My eyes looked up from behind the book I was pretending to read.

Alex was sprawled on his bed face up, his eyes screwed shut, his Adam's Apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed tightly.

"The only girl I ever loved died. And it was all my fault."

"What was her name?"

He opened one eye.

"You know, people usually tell me it's not my fault."

"Yeah, but then you'd say it is and then we'd get stuck in a pointless argument."

"Margaret." He said abruptly. "But she hated the name so all her friends called her Meg. I liked to call her Maggie."

"What was she like?"

"Refreshing." He laughed a bitter, short laugh. "Never once held her tongue, said anything and everything that came into her mind. I fell in love with her because she scolded me for being an idiot. I used to be the guy that had everything- girls, friends, money, means- all of it. I had a parade of yes-men and she was the only girl who would tell me no. But I wasn't smart with what I had. Because I went and messed everything up." He sighed and ran a hand down his face wearily.

"Did you really love her?"

"With every part of my old entitled bratty rich kid self. And every part of whatever I am now."

"That's dangerous."

"I know. I guess that's why you don't like to attach yourself then."

"Stop playing shrink, you're bad at it."

That earned a chuckle from his side.

"Am I really? I've been sent around to enough to know every mind trick they want to throw at you. I think I'd be a good shrink."

"If there was such a thing as a good shrink." I rolled my eyes.

There was a pause.

"I miss her so much sometimes, it's like I'm overloading, I'm going to explode."

"You feel like you're insane."

"Yeah." We shared a look. Then looked away.

"Its like you either feel everything at once or nothing at all." I skimmed the cover of my closed book with a soft sigh. "If you feel, its agony. You want nothingness. When you have nothing, it's like you're hollow inside. A blank space where something should be. But it isn't there." I took a shaky breath. "You'd do anything to feel even pain."

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you," he mused quietly. My eyes narrowed and cast him a sharp look.

"How would you know?"

"I'm your roommate. You really think I haven't noticed?" He stretched his arms out above his head lazily.

"None of the others did." I frowned, my face heating up a bit. I tugged at my long sleeves self consciously. I thought I did a good job of hiding but clearly we were both lacking in that department when it came to people like us who could read each other in a split second.

"I'm not one of the others."

"Screw you." He was smirking slightly but I still saw what he was hiding behind his mask. Hurt. Lots of hurt. Memories. Too many bad ones he wanted to forget. Too many good ones that only make things worse. I suddenly realized the reason for his nightmares.

"You didn't ask me how she died."

"I didn't think it was appropriate."

"Thanks for that."

I made a questioning face.

"You don't pry. You keep your distance. But you still ask the questions about the things that matter without making it worse."

"It never matters how a person goes. In the end, we all kick the can, so the only thing that matters to me is who they were and how they lived their life." I said vaguely. Alex caught my eye before I looked away. He already knew what I was hiding.

He got up and started pacing the room, scanning the walls, floor, furniture, and then me, arms tucked behind his head.

"She was supposed to have a long, full life. I wish she'd never met me. She would still be living it up if I hadn't chased her."

I curled my legs up to my chest, tucking my knees under my chin and lowering my eyelids softly.

"Tell me more about Maggie."

He smiled distantly as if thinking of happier times, before his face faded back to gray.

"She loved the color orange, no matter what other people would say. She hated to wear her glasses and kept them on the back of her head, she said it was so that she could see people from the back of her head. She liked to laugh, loved to make other people laugh. She could skip stones farther than anyone on Wharton Beach-" He paused, sucking in a breath, like he'd said too much.

"She sounds great."

"I think you two would've gotten along."

"Hm." I felt the bed sink a little and I knew that Alex had sat down. I opened my eyes. He'd leaned against the footboard and stretched out his legs. I, already leaning back at the headboard mimicked his position and stretched my legs out parallel to his.

Another silence, but one that was to be relished. It felt like right after you finish crying. That kind of empty, exhausted feeling that made you quiet and docile because all the frustration was cried out of you.

I suddenly felt everything coming back to me, the things I'd wanted to suppress floating back to the surface where it didn't belong. I remembered his face. The way he talked and smiled and laughed and joked. How his lips looked when they whispered a shy but true declaration of love to me. He was a dork. The best dork in the world. I didn't deserve him. He's better off without me.

But my heart still ached, surrounded by emptiness and self-inflicted loneliness.

Because I still wanted to spend every second around him. I haven't seen him in so long, but I know he's moved on. I'm easy to forget. I'm like driftwood. I get pushed and pulled by waves beyond my control and I'm plain and unremarkable.

Regardless, I still feel it. The unmistakable pang of loneliness and longing.

I scoot down to the end of the bed and find his lips. They're soft, but I'm rough. I taste blood in seconds.

"You taste like she did," he said, breathless. "Though she was a softer kisser. Never bit me." He licked his lips.

"You taste like he did," I said back. "Though he knew how to kiss. You're sloppy."

"So we're more like each other than we knew before." He said, hinting at the skeleton in my closet paralleling his.

"Shut up." I said and grabbed his shirt to pull him closer to me.

In a way, it was sick, what we did. We pretended that we were the people that we had both lost and acted like they were never gone be cause we were lonely and hurting and didn't have any kind of attachment or expectation for each other. So I kissed him and made myself believe that it was Brandon. And he held me and made himself believe that it was Maggie.