tell him the truth

"Look I know it's no excuse but I'm only human, and young at that. So I'm gonna make mistakes, then hope you understand."

It had all gone so terribly wrong. Mainly, the relationship and that phone call.

Royce had never felt anything like what he felt with Caroline. The very first time he saw her, he loved her. He tried to play it cool, but he had been so obvious in that first moment. Just awe at this beautiful creature before him. He couldn’t fake it. And time would teach that lesson to him over and over again. He adored her and he was foolish enough to think that was enough. That their relationship would be a carefree journey. Something straight out of the movies.

Instead things fell apart. Which in hindsight wasn’t actually surprising. They went to romantic comedies together, had drinks in the evening on the couch, met each other’s parents. But they kept each other at a distance. They didn’t talk about their dreams or fears. They didn’t talk about how they loved each other. They acted like a couple. And were stupid enough to be surprised that acting wasn’t enough.

It was no one’s fault. It certainly wasn’t hers. Royce was the one that had become unsettled first. That even before he could really recognize it, knew that something wasn’t quite right. And then one night he went out with the guys and he met a girl. A random girl at a random bar. She was cute enough, but so were a million other girls. But she sat and she talked to him. They left together and went back to her place. And they sat and talked more. They talked about everything, and it was suddenly so clear everything that was wrong with his relationship with Caroline.

And he was but a man, so he did what men sometimes do. He let the moment carry him and he slept with that girl. He couldn’t even look at her as he left the next morning. He couldn’t look at himself. Caroline was out of town but the phone was sitting right by him in the car. So he called her and he told her what happened. She cried. He pretended not to. She told him so much in that thirty minute conversation. So much about the dreams she had for their life together, the things he did that made her love him, the hope that she found in him. It was everything he had ever needed to hear. Just a day too late. And then she was gone. She was done with him and she was gone.

Royce sat there. By that stupid phone. And he felt physically ill. Shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, a numbingly sharp pain throughout his body. Maybe this was shock. Or maybe this was what it felt like when your heart actually broke.

lift me up

"So the pain begins as the music fades. I'm left here with more than I can take."

Molly swayed rhythmically to the sound of silence. The power of the song that had just ended simply blocked out the thunderous applause surrounding her. Her eyes were barely closed and moist from a river of tears. She may have stood there forever in that trance if her partner hadn't jarred her back to reality. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the front of the stage.

Molly opened her eyes reluctantly, and all her senses returned. People were clapping, many were standing, some even crying. So she tried desperately to hold herself together and curtsied towards each side of the auditorium before walking briskly off stage. At the safety of her semi-private vanity, Molly finally felt safe enough to think about what had just happened.

She had done that dance a million times during rehearsals. The lead in a ballet, something she never expected to get at 17 years old. Molly fought hard for that piece and even harder to keep it. The choreographer told her repeatedly throughout rehearsal that something wasn't quite there.

But something happened that night. Molly wasn't sure what it was exactly, but suddenly it all clicked. This ballet was a tragedy, about the rise and then fall of love. So there she was, in the final act, when the music hit her like a whirlwind. So sad and so desperate, absent of hope. The movements were like second nature to her now so she never flubbed as images of her own life began to fill her head.

Hers was a life without love as well. It seemed as if her life story picked up right where this ballet ended. She was the lonely girl, absent of feeling, going through the motions of life. Or she was before this night. Molly opened her eyes to look in the vanity and felt that she could see the visible change in her. A sadness where there once was just a void.

tell me why

"Down here from the ground I see who you are."

It had changed so many things in her life. It wasn't really the big stuff that bothered her. The trial, the look of pity on her friends and families' faces. She had prepared herself for that and she was a fighter. And it wasn't the things she expected. It had only taken three months for her to start back dating. Now, seven months after it happened, she had a boyfriend and they had a healthy, normal relationship.

But there were these things. She used to be a stomach sleeper and now just laying on her stomach for a few seconds created instant panic. The elevator at work made this loud clicking sound when it arrived on a floor, a sound too similar to cocking a gun. Just two days ago, her infant nephew had pulled her hair and it took all her bodily control to not drop him immediately. The smell of coffee. It was these strange, small, unexpected moments that brought up the terror of that night. She didn't know how to get past it.

It seemed like it had happened so long ago. Almost as if it happened to another person. Maybe her radar was down, but she had never gotten an uneasy feeling about the guy. They had run into each other at the grocery store a few times, flirted shamelessly, and finally he had asked her out for coffee. They had coffee and everything was fine. Pleasant conversation, a respectable amount of chivalry, no sexual advances or innuendo. So when he asked her to dinner at the end of the coffee date, she felt completely comfortable saying yes.And even dinner had gone well. They dined at one of her favorite restaurants. Shared a bottle of wine. More great conversation. Then he drove her home. They sat in the car talking for fifteen minutes, so eventually she invited him in for coffee. The night was still relatively young and she wanted to finish their conversation.

The mistake of her life. It didn't take long after they were both inside and the door was locked that everything changed. A lot of it was blurry, almost like a dream. But there was a distinct moment, before the nightmare really started, that she knew something was wrong. She dropped her keys after she came in the house. When she bent down to pick them up, she glanced up at him. Really she was trying to see if he was checking her out. And he was, but the look in his eye wasn't a man checking out a woman's cleavage. It was a savage look of a tiger stalking its prey.

harder to breathe

"Does it kill? Does it burn? Is it painful to learn that its me that has all the control?"

It had taken awhile, but her plan had come together well. Of course, she had never suspected otherwise. Beth had perfected this game.

In the beginning, she had really hoped things would be different. That Will would be different from those other guys. That he was interested in more than her body. But she was wrong. Beth wavered for a moment recalling the way her hope and desire had been killed with one quick conversation. Will made it perfectly and painfully clear that this was just a sex thing. Of course, she had controlled her reaction and agreed convincingly.

Now here she was four months later. The so-called sex thing had continued. And Beth had spent these four months lying to herself, burying any real feelings she had for Will and encouraging the notion that he should be treated just like any other guy from her past. Use then lose.
Beth recognized the perfect moment a week away. Will had suddenly become a little more tender when they had sex. He had shown signs of jealousy when he saw another guy approach her. He had called her a few times just to chat.

Beth turned to him that morning after she got dressed, after a night of putting in some of her best work. She told him that she thought they should end things, that she was ready to move on to a new fling, that this had just gotten a little stale. And of course that they should still remain friends.

She saw it. That look of surprise, disappointment, confusion. The look of being hurt. She knew that look because she had felt it, and now Beth was supposed to be relishing in passing that hurt along to him. Instead, her own hurt surfaced suddenly and threatened to break her whole facade. She grabbed her things, threw a quick goodbye over her shoulder, and left him there alone in his apartment trying to figure out what had just happened.

Beth made it to her car, which was thankfully parked out of sight from Will's apartment. The tears came streaming down despite her best effort to calm herself. She wiped them away frantically, knowing that no matter how bad she felt now her pride would never let her change her mind. This was done.

breathless

"When you feel the world is crashing all around your feet, come running headlong into my arms."

Devin couldn't help but scan the room the moment she entered the old gymnasium. She wasn't having feelings of nostalgia from the hundreds of times she had been in this room watching basketball games or having cheer practice. She wasn't taking in the sight of her former classmates as they mingled awkwardly. She was looking for him.

Devin had planned to come to this high school reunion for all the typical reasons. There were people she hadn't seen in years that she was genuinely looking forward to catching up with. And of course there were people that she just nosily wanted to see what happened to. And yes Devin was also happy to show off her new fiance and tell everyone about her important job in Los Angeles.

Then three weeks before the reunion, she found out the news. Ryan was sick. Really sick. Cancer sick. Of course Devin didn't find out from Ryan; they hadn't spoke in nearly eight years. A friend of a friend told her.

So here she was looking around for this boy from high school. Ryan. The one that got away, as she had jokingly told her fiance. And now that Devin was surrounded by this familiar place and former friends, those old feelings stirred up a little more than she expected. But she did her part. She mingled and hugged and drank punch.

Then there Ryan was. She nearly fell over him trying to avoid a girl she used to take Spanish with. The party was almost over, so Ryan asked her for the last dance. It was all so epic, so high school. Devin glanced furtively at her fiance who nodded his head okay. She noticed some reluctance in his eyes, but he knew how important this was for her.

All Devin really remembered about that dance was that the music was slow and a little melancholy, that Ryan was thinner than expected when she put her arms on his shoulders, and that they never said a word. But somehow it was perfect. It was the fulfillment of a crush. It was the reuniting of old friends. It was goodbye.

The song ended. Ryan stepped back, then took her in for a quick but powerful hug. Then he was gone, just as abruptly as he had appeared. Devin turned and walked unsteadily towards her fiance who gratefully met her halfway. And she cried, which is maybe what she had really been waiting to do all along.

ready for love

"I will learn what you teach and do the best that I can."

So Raven has a boyfriend. It seems like a regular, everyday thing but its not. Not for Raven. The last boyfriend she had was from college, more than six years ago. She was a different person then in a completely different mindset. Now here she was at 28 years old with no idea of how to carry herself in this relationship. Of course her friends were filled with dos and don'ts, but she had listened to their bitterness and complaints for years and was more than weary of any advice they had to give.

Malcolm was a good guy. A strong, silent type with this amazing smile. And Raven adored him. They had known each other for a while, then one night their was a spark and everything changed between them. The beginning had been so intense that Raven hadn't had time to think and panic about the prospect of being in a relationship.

It wasn't even really that she was afraid of the commitment. Raven was into Malcolm, she wanted them to get closer, and could easily see herself falling in love with him. But Raven was afraid that she didn't know how to be a girlfriend. The dates, the hand holding, the invasion of private space, the openness, the trust, the sacrifice. The meeting of the parents. All of these things scared her.

But whenever she was with Malcolm, Raven knew she had to try. She knew he was worth it. And she knew that these were issues and fears she would have to get over in order to live her life.

goodbye to you

"I want you but I'm not giving in this time."

It was odd because Lacey didn't really believe in trial and error. She never accepted that adage that one has to learn the hard way. She had never been a gambler, especially when it came to her personal life. Yet the past two years had been little more than a roll of the dice. And while she knew that some of the blame should be on her shoulders, she had no qualms about placing all of it with him. Devin.

Lacey met Devin in the most innocent of ways, even though know she found herself doubting that that meeting was as random as it seemed. But hopefully it was. Two people meet in a grocery store Raisin Bran versus Raisin Bran Crunch in the cereal aisle. He was charming, kind, and cute. He asked for her number and Lacey gave it to him. By their third date, they were practically inseparable. Maybe that was part of the problem, that things had happened too fast for either one of them to really be objective.

Their relationship was intense. The arguments were big, and always contained insulting words and harsh accusations that shook Lacey to the core. But Devin always seemed so sincere, so apologetic and willing to compromise after the fight was over. He always admitted defeat, which Lacey enjoyed at the time, but now realized was his strategic way of being in control of the relationship. But the good days were so good that it helped her forget the bad. Peaceful walks along the water's edge, strolling hand in hand. Late night philosophical conversations. A shared love of classic movies and bourbon.

But the bad days were so bad. And they had become far too frequent by the end. Lacey thought maybe they had always been unraveling, that they had never really been united in the first place. That somehow she had fallen into the spider's web that was Devin's love and by some stroke of grace she had survived without getting her head bitten off.

But her heart was breaking as she walked out the door of his apartment. They both knew it would be the last time without it being said. Devin didn't fight it, as if his conscience took over for a moment and demanded he let her go. She made it out the door, down the hallway, and into the elevator before she looked back. Even then she was mad at herself for the tiny speck of hope that existed inside her. Hope that Devin would be standing in that door, with tears in his eyes and a small speck of his own hope that she would come back to him. But Devin wasn't there and Lacey shakily pushed the button for the lobby.