Wasted Love

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

"Avelyn, " Jimin softly sighs, stroking my hair gently as I cry for what must be the thousandth time today alone. "Shh, it's gonna be okay."

"You're a lot of things Park Jimin, but a liar is none of them." I sniffle.

It's been a rough weekend.

Hoseok has come by several times, refusing to leave unless I speak with him. Jeonguk had only just finally carried him away a few hours ago, and I find that I have no appetite.

I have holed myself up in my bedroom, and though the others have steered clear, opting to give me space and time, Jimin refuses to leave me alone.

"I'm sorry Avelyn, " he tells me weakly, "I should never have pushed you so hard to give him a chance."

"No, " I sniffle, grabbing his hand, "it's not your fault. You were just doing what you thought was best for me."

Jimin looks as if he wants to argue, but bites his tongue instead.

We sit there, in the silent bleakness of my dark bedroom, neither of us with anything to say. All of my words are trapped within by mind, unable to free themselves due to the painful tangle that my heart is in. And I'm sure that Jimin knows there isn't anything he can say to make things better.

But I am grateful for his presence.

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~HOSEOK'S POV~

I shudder, enjoying the way the alcohol burns as it slides down my throat and into my stomach. It distracts me from the pain that I feel in my heart, though it doesn't take the pain away.

Nothing could take the pain away.

When was it exactly that I fell for Avelyn? When did my feelings of like and curiosity shift and become something more?

"Hey handsome, are you here alone tonight?"

Suddenly, on the stool beside me is a woman, a rather attractive one at that. But she is not Avelyn, and as such, I completely ignore her.

"I'm talking to you, " she huffs annoyingly, but then her voice shifts to honey once more as she suggestively asks, "wanna get out of here?"

"Not with you, " I slur bluntly, taking yet another swig of the beverage before me.

Whiskey, on the rocks.

I pay no mind to the woman as she leaves, clearly offended. Let her be offended. In this world, there is no one for me but Avelyn.

Too bad that it's hopeless.

I don't know if I can summon the courage to face the accusations that Jenna will throw at me, no matter how much my heart aches to be with Avelyn.

"I have always been a coward, " I berate myself silently. "So what? You're just gonna give up, and let Avelyn go?"

Everything in me rages against the thought.

Like the masochist that I am, my brain suddenly summons images of her, moving on, loving someone else. Someone that is not me. The thought of someone else kissing those lips, someone else holding her hand and walking through life at her side...

Without realizing it I have crushed the glass in my hand, having squeezed it so hard that it shattered beneath my fingers.

"Hoseok!" Sofia exclaims, abandoning the tall gentleman she'd been flirting with to rush over to me, towel in hand.

She pulls from below a first aid kit, and sets about disinfecting and bandaging my hand as she scolds me.

"I think you've had enough to drink, what's got you in such a mess anyway? Where's your girlfriend?"

I laugh bitterly, and throw my head down upon the bar, not even caring that there is now whiskey all over my clothes, my face, my hair even.

"She left me, " I mumble pitifully, "and she was right to."

"That doesn't sound like the Hoseok I know. Weren't you two only dating for a short time anyway?" She pauses, eyes going wide as saucers as she realizes the source of my pain. "Oh my God, you fell in love with her!"

Again, I can only chuckle sadly, self-deprecating in my response.

"What the fuck are you doing here then?" She questions angrily, "you should be out there convincing her to take you back! Come on! I saw the way she looked at you!"

"Do you know how to speak in any volume aside from loud?" I whine, lifting my head from the bar in order to look at her.

She ignores my complaint, and fixes me with a glare.

"I mean it Hoseok, " she deadpans, completely serious when all I want her to do is drop it. "Aren't you even gonna try to change her mind?"

"What do you fucking know?" I roar, suddenly angry. Hot tears run down my face, a result of her probing, and I nearly scream, "I did try! She wants something from me that I can't do!"

From across the bar, despite her lack if height, she reaches across and slaps me full on in the face.

"Don't ever scream at me like that again, " she demands, "and for the love of God, pull yourself together."

Her eyes soften then, and she looks at me with pity.

"What is it that she wants?" She asks, and I sigh, realizing that she isn't going to drop it.

"She wants me to make Jenna stop coming around, " I reveal somberly. "And you know why that's so hard for me."

"Hoseok..." She sighs.

But something in her eyes tells me that she knows something I don't, and not for the first time I have to wonder why.

"What happened really wasn't your fault, " she says slowly.

"Save it, " I bark, "Avelyn already said the same thing, and even that didn't help."

"You told her?" She asks, clearly astonished.

But then, something akin to determination fills her eyes.

"I know for a matter of a fact that what happened to your child was not your fault, " my heart thugs painfully in my chest as she continues to reveal the truth. "Jenna was doing drugs, Hoseok. Drinking it up, and living as if she wasn't pregnant at all. I was there with her when she went to the hospital, the doctor sited these as the reasons the baby died, and even told her that had the baby been born at all, she wouldn't have been allowed to keep it. They found just about every illegal substance known to man in her system."

"I... What?" Suddenly, I feel as if I am sober, and while there is a great weight listen from my shoulders, I am now filled with anger the likes of which I have never experienced before.

"I think that you need to go and see Jenna, now." She tells me.

And this time, I don't disagree.