The Anatomy of a Broken Heart //Completed//

64. Caleb

My heart was racing as fast as it had last night. I felt dizzy and my palms were sweaty. Even just a two minute conversation with her made me lose it and I hadn't even touched her. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, because I clearly wasn't in my right mind. All through the night I had done nothing but think about that kiss. It had seriously fucked me up.

Not in the "I've done a bad thing I'm going to hell" sort of way, more like "holy shit, I need more of that." They call it falling. What they don't say, is that it feels like plummeting fifty stories after stepping out onto what you thought had a platform and landing face first onto the asphalt.

Before I could further examine all the symptoms of my terminal condition, my mom came up the stairs carrying a shopping bag. She didn't see me standing just three feet away from her, and proceeded to knock on Santana's door. I watched as she waited, and I waited too, to catch a glimpse of the girl I had never thought twice about a couple of weeks ago, but who since yesterday, (or had it been even earlier than that?) had turned everything onto her own axis, making my world now revolve around her.

Wasn't I just pining for Farrah days ago? Can a heart fit two completely different people in it, or was that too selfish?

But it was just a kiss for her, so it had to be just that for me too.

Santana opened her door and I could hear the surprise in her voice when she saw Mom, who handed her the shopping bag. All too soon, the door was closing again and I didn't even get a good look at her.

"Caleb!" Mom finally noticed me. "I didn't see you there."

"I just got here," I lied. It was enough for me to admit that I was just lurking in the hall like a creep. I didn't want Mom to realize it too.

"What did you boys do today?" She asked, walking towards the stairs, and I followed.

"We went fishing. Nothing's really biting." I shrugged. "You?"

"Oh, just some shopping with the girls."

I nodded and before we reached the bottom, where I was sure every ear would be available to tune in, I stopped her. "Hey, thanks for taking her with you, and, you know, being nice."

Mom looked me straight in the eyes, blue on gray.

"I'm not a monster, honey. Despite what you may think."

"I know that. It's just that the other day you were talking about her like, I don't know. Like you hated her. What made you change your mind?"

"I don't hate anyone," she reassured me, shaking her head. "I just want you to see for yourself who this girl really is. And if I'm wrong, then I'll have given her the benefit of the doubt. I don't like to judge people before I've met them. It's difficult not to, but I don't like it. Sooner or later, everyone reveals their true nature."

I didn't know what to say. There was some truth to what she was saying, about people showing who they truly were eventually, but I couldn't agree with her because I'd be admitting doubts about Santana's character. Doubts which didn't exist. I knew her, even if we'd only just begun this friendship, or whatever it was that was going on between us. She wasn't interested in our money.

I went back upstairs to shower. Spending the whole day listening to Marcus pick on Ansel took a toll on me, and I wasn't the greatest fisher either. Half the time, I was fighting to detangle my line from theirs, which only added fuel to their mad mood. The only thing keeping me with them had been the thought that I'd have to face Santana later. That conversation had been surprisingly less painful than Marcus and Ansel talking about their upcoming trip to Europe, otherwise known as 'Ansel's sabbatical in which he avoids all responsibility and pretends to take a year off to find himself and figure out what he wants to do with his life.' It was too bad I couldn't do that. I had already landed myself in the mouth of the storm when I asked my dad for an internship, all for a girl who would never appreciate it.