Blurred Lines [BxB] COMPLETED

0.17

0.17 - Monday 3:27 p.m.

Maverick Bale

"How was Lauren?" Rhys asks as we walk across the quad.

"Didn't go well. Definitely screwed up," I say, wincing as I remember yesterday. The ominous 'we should talk' text scared the fucking shit out of me, but I agreed to meet in a public place, some Starbucks around the corner. Lauren's face didn't brighten when she saw me, and instead of rushing toward me with a hug, she awkwardly waved with a frown.

I wasn't expecting much else after my behavior at the party on Friday and my silence the following Saturday. Her anger at the party after we left the bedroom to get some drinks was cold and distant. Not something I want to go through again.

"I didn't realize you wanted to talk," I had said, earning another one of Lauren's typical frowns.

"We hook up at the party, Beverly...well, she...she was Beverly, and then you got drunk even though you told me you were driving, and then I find out later that you had never driven and that Jules had taken you, and to top it all off, you ignore all my texts the next day after you completely disappeared when the party shut down. You think after all that I wouldn't want to talk?"

I had known all of this, but spelled out in sequence made it all seem much worse. It made me look like a real asshole, which maybe I am. But that doesn't matter, because Rhys had accepted me (for the most part), and I didn't have enough energy to fix whatever was wrong between Lauren and me.

"What's going on Mav? I thought you wanted this," Lauren had said, her eyes sad and glassy. I didn't quite know what she was referring to. Us? Hooking up? Dating? Being honest with each other? They all sounded stupid, meaningless, removed from me and my life at the moment.

"Nothing's going on. I just don't like you like that," I say, carelessly, because she thought I was an asshole, and I was just playing the part. And also, if I'm completely honest with myself, I just wanted to leave, to cut off this string I had and be free.

In the back of my mind, I knew there was more to it, that everytime I was looking at Lauren my mind wandered to someone else with sparkling green eyes and chocolate brown hair, as if he was mine and Lauren was some random, desperate, annoying girl I wanted nothing to do with.

Lauren had started crying, silently, tear drops falling down her cheeks slowly like a funeral march. She called me an asshole, fiercely and quietly and without hesitation, but I couldn't feel any regret. I guess I truly am an asshole.

"That sucks," Rhys says, drawing me back to the present. We're nearly the last ones on the quad, none of our friend group left lingering at school. Good, I think, surprising myself. Rhys sifts a hand through his thick, dark hair, staring past me in his distant, pensive way. I want to stay like this forever. Just us two, talking together, walking together. I think back to Saturday, and Rhys's departure to Beverly the Bitch's house, and reality knocks on the door.

"How was Beverly?" I ask, her name like poison in my mouth. Rhys cringes.

"I broke up with her," he says. "It was messy."

"I thought you guys were going to..." I can't finish, but I don't need to. Rhys knows exactly what I mean.

"No. Well, yes, we were. But I just...couldn't," Rhys says. He averts his eyes to the ground, and my breath catches. "She would be too clingy. Wanting to date, probably, and I just couldn't deal with that."

"So you broke up with her?" I ask.

"Pretty much," Rhys says. I don't know what that means, but who the fuck cares? Definitely not me.