APOLLO ✓

11.

27 Apr 2018
21:59

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when fire burns ;

Dear someone,

If you saw my previous post then you know by now that this year hasn't gone as I'd expected it to. I guess I never really expected Starry Eyes and I to be more than what we were, but I never expected us to be less than either.

Yet here we are.

This is the final chapter in the story that I write to you for a while, because this is where my current story starts off. I've been trying to move on as best as I can. Honest to God, I have. I can't say I'm any less depressed, but I'm not crying over Starry Eyes anymore.

I won't lie to you and say I don't think about him, because obviously, I do. I've just learned to control my emotions when I do, just like my therapist has been teaching me to.

You can't be good for someone else, if you're not good for yourself, she always says.

He seemed to be moving on well enough too.

He met a girl - Valentina, we'll call her, and she is unconventionally beautiful. She is everything he deserves. She seems to be the only person he didn't shut out after that mysterious summer. And I so desperately, pathetically, wanted to be her, at first.

But I'm not, and I learned to be mostly okay with it.

I guess I'm not the same person either. I still look like a stoic asshole, but now I'm a stoic asshole with silver hair. I was in need of a change and my hair took the fall. I've also picked up the devil's dick again. It's been hard adjusting to this new way of living without him, okay?

At the beginning of the year, my friends knew I was in a slump, and they tried to help, I'll give them that. Pretty sure they thought it was dad related, but when the drift between us became noticeable, they realised that I'd suffered a different kind of loss. They started to see how helplessly in love I was - possibly still am. They saw that the only person who brought me joy in my darkest hour had shut me out.

Guess I wasn't too good at hiding it.

I can't say I've fully gotten out of that slump since - I still miss him like hell - but I'm at a stage where they don't walk on eggshells or give me worried side glances anymore. I'm finding myself creating happy moments without him, but sometimes those moments are corrupted with the thought of what it would've been like to experience it with him.

But still, life moves on.

Homecoming's passed and my last football season is over.

Even if he was distant, he came to every game, which I was glad about, admittedly. Sometimes on the field I'd catch his eyes and neither of us would look away till I was forced to go play.

I was scouted and given a great opportunity. A year ago, that would've been the dream. Now, I'm thinking that I need to break away from this image - do something that I never gave a real chance to these past few years.

Like books and writing. When applying for schools, I looked over the English Literature program in a moment of curiosity. But now I want to see what that holds for me.

So far, only coach and mom know. Now you too, I guess.

For obvious reasons, Starry Eyes doesn't know this yet - he's barely around me anyways. Funnily enough, when we are in the same room, he's on the other side, faraway, yet he's setting my body alight with his intense stare. His blank, emotionless yet fierce stare.

I'm not sure if he realizes that I know he's staring.

Damn, I miss him. I miss everything about him. Especially his stupid "did you knows".

Then, as if the fates are listening to my silent outcries, the unexpected happens and, after months, I come face to face with him: he and Valentina are selling prom tickets. He can't run and he can't avoid conversation like he's been for the past few months. Valentina gives him a side eye, stands up and leaves.

"I miss you," I whisper before I can think and before he can ask me about tickets.

Looks like after all that effort to let go, I've chosen the fire.

He looks up and I see a break in his steel exterior. And it's like he has a revelation before my eyes but I don't know what it is.

"I..." He's hesitant, "I-I miss you, too. You, um, coming to prom?"

He's looking down at the tickets now, avoiding my eyes. I'm too stunned to care because he's not brick walling me, like I'd expected.

"Will I be able to see you?"

"What would stop you?"

He seemed to have caught us both off guard.

What would stop me? Lots, in fact, but I just silently buy the ticket because I selfishly wanna see him in a fitted suit that brings out the colour of his eyes. And my, that suit definitely has.

In case you're wondering, I'm writing this from prom.

I should be out there enjoying myself, but I feel more... suffocated, than anything. I don't wanna do all that dumb shit I usually do.

I'm standing alone on the sidelines, rejecting every advance in favour of looking at him.

Guess I'm not as over him as I'd like to pretend. I'm scared I'll never get over him, but then I remember that in a few weeks we graduate and in a few months, I'll be in a different state.

A chance to move on. To start a new. And I know I'll find my peace then.

But I still have to deal with the now.

That'll be the most difficult part.

This is overwhelming.

I don't know if you'll hear from me again, so possibly for the last time,

- golden boy