fallout » c. hood

prologue.

She remembered the first time she saw him. He had lived just down the street, but she'd never really paid him a second glance; he was simply just the kid who was always dribbling a football in the front yard. Then the day came when he accidentally hit her in the head with said football, and from that moment on, he caught her attention. Once he had it, she wondered how she'd never noticed him before, because now she couldn't seem to keep her eyes off him.

He remembered the first time he saw her. She had lived down the street, and although the first thing he had noticed was her striking looks, what really kept his attention was the striking right hook she landed to his face when the football he had been dribbling landed a blow to her head. Truthfully, he had done it to get her to notice him, but now that she had, he would do everything to make sure she stayed.

As their friendship grew, she saw him; really saw him and the strong love for music that flowed through his blood like it did hers. She noticed his passion for the art develop and then the songwriting started, and she admired how he truly began to shine brighter than he ever had before. And then, as they grew older, she began to notice other things; stupid things, like the way his fingers held his guitar protectively, making her wonder if he would ever hold her the same way. It was on the day that he told her for the first time that he believed in her, something no one had ever said before, that she realized. She was falling too fast and too hard, and it scared the shit out of her.

As their friendship grew, he saw her; really saw her and all the fears that were holding her back. He noticed the fighting coming from her house during late nights that were loud enough to hear down the street, and he saw how she slowly retreated further into herself than she ever had before. But what he had always noticed and what hadn't changed was the fire that lit up her multi-coloured eyes when she talked about all her dreams, and one day he hoped that he would be the one to make them come true. It was on the day that they were lying side by side on his bed talking about anything and everything that he realized he had already fallen too fast and too hard, and now there was no going back. Somehow, he was perfectly okay with that.

But then something happened, and by that time she was already finished falling and it was too late to save herself from hitting the ground. So she did what she had done so many times before and picked herself off the ground and ran, because if there was one thing she excelled in, it was fleeing. But no matter how many times she tried to ignore the cuts and bruises she had received from the fall, the aching pain that followed in her footsteps remained.

And he did the only thing he knew how to do when things got hard and he left, but he didn't realize that being with her was like flying until he hit the ground full of jagged rocks and broken glass. He didn't see until now how her presence was his oxygen until he was drowning and the water started to fill his lungs and sting his eyes. By the time he surfaced, it was too late and she was gone; she had run too fast and too far and he was too busy coughing up water to follow.

They kept giving her band-aids, but she didn't see how a flimsy piece of material could heal the scars that ran so deep and permanent, they could have only formed from heartbreak. They kept telling her that she would be okay, and maybe she would be okay, but she would never be great or wonderful or excellent again. And it was all because of him. She hated him, she hated him, she goddamn hated him, but most of all, she hated how she would never fully be able to stop loving him for as long as she existed.