Love Song (LGBTQ+) (COMPLETED)

26. Betrayer (Interlude 6)

Running through the dark park, Nathan followed me onto the faintly lit field, where the flowers on the ground were just as abundant as the stars in the sky. Well, it obviously wasn't even close to the same number, but sometimes the sheer beauty of them all made it seem that way. Nature seemed to move to its own song and dance, to its own will and shape. It created beauty, it created beauty and then so cruelly, savagely flattened all of it.

There was never a reason and never an answer. Nature gave and took as it so pleased, without regard for who was around or how that person felt. It gave life and it took life, with and without reason. Nature made its own choices, for every last living thing on this Earth. Whether an animal, a person, or even a tree lived or died was completely up to nature itself. If that was the case, then what made nature any different from a dictator?

Both rule with an iron fist, killing as they please. Both bring joy and pain, satisfaction and destruction. Nature and a dictator have no team to help them make their choices, nature and dictators have no congress to veto a decision. Nature and dictators are identical, the exact same in all but one way. That one single difference is simple, dictators are the ones that show their faces after each choice is made. Good or bad, life or death.

Nature took my everything and left me with nothing to blame - except myself.

"It's nice out for once." I thought aloud, spinning to see how far Nathan was behind me.

Appearing under the dim light, his swollen eyes and nose were accompanied by a cut lip among other small marks from the fight he had with Devin. I was under the impression that guys liked to show them off, like they were trophies or something to be proud of, but Nathan did no such thing. If anything, he shied away from them. He hadn't said a word about them or the fight throughout the whole drive, not even about the results or how much it hurt.

He was actually more silent than he typically was. Most of the time he played himself out to be arrogant, laden with sarcasm and witty responses, but not right then. At that moment, he looked like someone else. He looked like me earlier that morning. Tired and empty with no will to do anything but disappear. That hadn't been the Nathan I saw or knew, or was he faking it all the entire time?

"It is." he answered distantly, slowly closing in.

Framing Hanley began to play in the headphone that was stuck in my right ear, and without even catching myself doing it, I had started to hum the song as I spun once again. The smell of the fresh air flowed into my nostrils as the snare smashed into the chorus, and that was when a smile began to creep across my face. I had no clue if it was Nixon's voice hitting me or if it was something else entirely, but Framing Hanley always managed to put a smile on my face. They weren't the most uplifting band, and I had no idea why they did that to me, but they just did.

"Nathan. . ." I sat down on the grass and watched him follow. "Can you be honest with me?"

He looked away for a moment as a mom and her son walked by. "Depends."

I brushed my bangs out of the way and pulled my headphone out. "Do you want to be around me? Or are you only around because of what happened?"

Nathan's hair partially fell over his eyes as his expression took a dive into clear thought, much deeper than I would've liked to see. It was simply a passing thought that I never planned to ask, but it stuck to me and it wouldn't leave. I had no idea how I would react to either answer, aside from the happy or the sad. Even then, what exactly was I looking for in his answer? I already knew somewhere deep inside that he was there because he felt responsible, but I had to know if there was something more that I wasn't seeing or hearing.

"It's both."

A wave of unsurety and unexpected emotion stormed my mind as I leaned in and slugged him with the palm of my right hand. It was as though it were instinct, a completely thoughtless gut reaction without no thought put into it. "Don't fucking pity me, Nathan. If you don't want me around, then I won't be."