Heartbreak Story - Byler

XXXIII - Inside His Mind

Will's POV:

It's been two weeks.

Almost two weeks since Mike and I had begun dating but in recent days, he'd been acting much more distant with me and it had truly broken my heart.

It all started on Monday morning when I was waiting for him to show up on his bike so we could cycle to school together as we now did everyday.

The morning was crisp and sent chills racing down my spine, despite the fact that my always overprotective mother had ensured I hadn't left the house with anything less than four thick layers on.

I had waited and I had waited but Mike never showed so Jonathan drove me instead, along with Max, asking me what had happened and I lied to protect my boyfriend. I had lied to my own brother for the boy I loved. I informed him we had planned to go separately that day and I had just forgotten but that was total bull. It appeared that Mike had been the one to forget about me.

Though the belief that I wasn't worthy of a thought in my own boyfriend's head was acid scalding my insides and boiling me alive from within, my heart still fluttered at the sight of him arriving at school mere seconds before the bell, looking all flustered but nonetheless beautiful as ever, and I decided not to be mad at him. I granted him forgiveness because pure, undeniable, unconditional and irreversible love forbade me from ever being angry with him.

"Hey," The boy who owned my whole heart and I knew was capable of destroying it whenever he wanted to called to me as he joined me, waiting for him by the bike racks before we headed to Homeroom. "I'm sorry about this morning, I had some errands to run and I meant to call but, you know..."

"It slipped your mind, I get it." I finished tonelessly, praying I could keep the despair from my voice as my heart fractured within my chest from his frosty words.

"Yeah, thanks for understanding." My love voiced, smiling as he slipped into his desk and I did the same. "I thought you'd be pissed off."

"Nope." I muttered sadly before pretending to avert my attention to our teacher and whatever nonsense he was spouting but I wasn't really listening. In reality, I was using every inch of my will power to prevent myself from bursting into tears, all the while my boyfriend having no clue whatsoever of how his absentmindedness had affected me.

As the week endured, Mike only grew more and more distant but with no explanation as to why. Not once did he offer an invitation to me to go to his home after school as he so often had done in the past, even long before we were dating. Eventually, I swallowed my pride and invited him to mine instead on the Thursday but he brushed me off and swore he was too busy.

That day was the first time I allowed myself to shed a tear on his behalf in weeks and, despite the fact my sister hadn't even been in the room when I had started to cry, I was somehow wrapped in her loving embrace within seconds of the first fall of a tear.

"What's happened, Will? What is it?" Max had asked desperately, worry and horror etched into her face like unyielding carvings in stone.

Shaking my head in response as my heart remained loyal to the man I loved, I passionately informed the girl whose chest I was beginning to dampen with the tears I had prayed no one would ever notice: "It's nothing, Maxie. I'm being dramatic, please just leave it."

"Not a chance. I love you and I'm not leaving this spot until you tell me exactly what's going on with you right now." My sister declared and she let go of me, flipping her long, fiery hair before putting her hands on her hips and pursing her lips in indignation.

I knew there was no way around it, my sister has always been as stubborn as they come and I could fight her all day if I had tried but she would still get it out of me eventually so I opened up. "It's Mike. He's been acting really different with me recently, like he doesn't want to spend time with me at all and it feels like he's not even thinking about me. I'm pretty sure he's bored with me already, I mean I can't blame him for that but it hurts so badly." I cried as my mind reeled with all the dark thoughts that had unforgivingly penetrated it during that harsh, dreaded and unfeeling week. "His mind is always somewhere else and I'm beginning to wonder if it's on somebody else too. I think he may have found somebody new, maybe realised he was never even really into guys and got with some girl or something. I know he'd have plenty of takers, I've seen the way so many girls gawk at him in school and Rick told me that their friend Kelly has been into him since they were kids. I'm trying so hard to just convince myself I'm being paranoid but I'm not so sure anymore, Maxie. I'm not sure." I sobbed hysterically as I broke down in the arms of my sister and she held me close once more to comfort and soothe me.

"Oh, Will." Max began as she rubbed gentle circles into my back, "I'm sure that's not the case. Mike loves you, he worships the ground you walk on and he'd rather die than let anything ever happen to you, let alone be the one to actually hurt you. He's probably just had a busy couple of days."

I pulled back so I could gaze into the face of the red head and I grasped the guilty look written across it that she hastily tried to hide from me and I was more than sure that she knew far more than she was letting on. In that one soul crushing moment, I understood that Max was lying to me and I had been betrayed by my very own sister.

"I guess you could be right." I replied to her monotonously as I lied right back. "I'm probably just over tired, I'll get some sleep."

"I think that would be for the best." The girl nodded in encouragement, seemingly relieved about me dropping the issue and it felt as though everything I had ever once known was collapsing around me.

Clambering into bed on that despair-filled Thursday night, my heart shattered within my chest and sleep evaded me for the first time in weeks.

School wasn't much different on the Friday than it had been all week and the most Mike and I interacted for the whole day was one swift embrace and peck on the cheek in an empty corridor before heading to Homeroom and the two hardly of us saw each other for the remainder of the day. I couldn't bear to turn up to lunch with two people I loved with all of my heart but now didn't trust so I ate my food in the AV room alone and hoped to god I wouldn't get caught.

I was returning my books to my locker in such a rush to get home at the end of the day that I very nearly missed the piece of paper that had been slipped into it but it fell to my feet just as I tried to scramble my way to the door before my sister caught up with me.

"Meet me at my place tomorrow morning at 10.
- M."

I spent the rest of Friday night locked away in my room, refusing to come out even when my mom begged me to eat some dinner.

Lying on my bed, I held the note above me so the light shone through it and I pondered over why on earth Mike suddenly wanted to see me and what it could all mean.

Horror paralysed my body as a most harrowing thought washed over me: is he going to break up with me tomorrow? Suddenly, it felt as though I was drowning and I began to gag and splutter breathlessly and my head felt as though it was going to explode from the sheer pressure of an unforeseen agony.

Within minutes, the devastation of my realisation turned to pure anger and I was furious with the boy I loved. Furious that he was about to do exactly what I had told him he would but he promised he would never.

This was nothing new, I was used to being used for a little while and discarded when the time came however I vowed to not let him have the last word and, though I was well aware that I loved him more than I could ever love another in my whole life, I made the decision to end things with him before he got the chance to do it to me.

Alex had utterly broken me with everything he had done and I had allowed it to happen by being so blinded by love that I could never see what was happening right in front of me. However, with Mike, my guard had been up during our relationship and, despite the fact I had been lowering it more and more every single day, I had never fully taken it down. For that, I was grateful to myself because it ensured that I had retained even some level of power in the relationship rather than handing it all over to the other party.

Unfortunately but unsurprisingly in my life, my guard had once again risen completely in order to protect myself from the kind of heartbreak only the love of your life could ever impart upon you.

I had given too much of myself to Mike Wheeler and I was going to take it back.

*

Hehe, don't shoot me please.
Back at it with my signature depressing af chapters. I'M SORRY, I'M BAD AT WRITING HAPPY!
Looky here, a shorter one! This was supposed to be hella longer but I'm not sure how often I'll get to post on this holiday so I'm posting this for now and the rest will follow hopefully soon enough.
I love you all and I thank you very much for your patience.
- Niamh.