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Pissed that he was robbed of achild he didn't know even existed until this moment.
But instead he holds me and the waves of emotion come crashing to shore. The floodgates open and I am soaking his sweatshirt with my tears. His arms wrap tighter around me as my body shakes from the sobs.
My secret that I have been holding for so long floats into the night air, getting lost in the darkness of the sky. It's our secret now.
Colton came to the funeral. I bet that his mom saw the obituary in the paper and encouraged him to. Black looks good on him, it makes him look older. Black on me looks like sadness personified, though I suppose that is the point. As ironic as it sounds, I feel like a little girl that went into her mothers closet and put on the little black dress that everyone was always raving about in Cosmo. The perfect little black dress can change everything: get the job, get the guy, get free drinks at the bar. But all it is doing is showing my sorrow, like a black pirate flag in the wind, the impending door visible from the shoreline.
Darren looks handsome in his black shirt, too. Maybe that's the rule. If all men look sexy in black, does that mean death and sadness are what attract us to them? Pulling us into the orbit, drawn to them knowing they will defend our honor andbrave the storms while we clutch at their backs, hiding our eyes from the truth.
Today isn't the day I find my bravery, black dress or not. I avoid Colton as much as I possibly can, keeping my eyes cast down to avoid his longing gaze, always finding a reason to walk in the opposite direction of him when he gets too close. I know the second I open my mouth to talk to him I will break down. He will think it's me mourning for my Mom and of course that is part of it, but the blood is a constant reminder of what else I lost.
Until I can't hide from him anymore. He corners me outside of the bathroom, finding the only opportunity to get me alone to pay his condolences. And then I told him I couldn't love him anymore. I lied and said that love was too much for me and I needed to focus on my family. It sounded ridiculous coming from a teenager in the throes of first love, but it is the only plate I could eliminate from juggling. It wasn't fair to keep him locked in things with me when my emotional availability is in the negatives.
Mom always said absence makes the heart grow fonder. She would use that as the reason I couldn't see Colton everyday after school or spend the entire day with him on the weekend. I think in some ways she saw what we were: dependent on each other, falling too fast and too hard.
When your first love is your best friend, it's hard to know who you are without them. We barely knew each other when we started dating, but as fourteen year old kids, it consisted of going to the movies unsupervised and getting to hold hands. But there's nothing that can ever match your first love.
The first butterflies in your stomach when you wonder if he is going to kiss you.
Thefirst time your fingers entwine and you have to decide whose hand goes on top.
The first whispered 'I love you' in the backseat of the car while his parents drove you home and left your cheeks hurting for hours from the permanent smile.
It's easy to get caught up in it, to crave the feeling of being loved. It's unmatched in every way.
Then it ends. You grow up, or grow apart, and become strangers to the new people you become.
He tried to talk me out of it, assuming it was only his heart that was breaking. I guess that's the most important lesson you learn with first love: how to deal with your first broken heart. Lucky for me, my heart was shattering in more ways than one which distracted me from the daily pain of losing Colton too. There was no way he could put all the pieces back together. Not enough glue on the planet could make it whole again.
And when the bleeding finally stopped, I had barely learned how to cope with my own feelings of being a girl without a mother to look to for guidance at such a critical time in my life. And I hadn't found a way to grieve a life I lost that I never even knew.
"If you scrub that counter any more you're going to wear the granite right off," Bryn remarks from her spot on my couch, her eyes poking over the top of the Ovis magazine she is reading.
"There was a sticky spot," I lie.
"Whatever you say. Have you read your horoscope in here yet?"
"No, I keep pretty busy, you know." I respond with a chuff as I plop onto the couch next to her, pulling her feet into my lap.
"Oh, it's a good one.Let your love light shine today, Libra. there's a great seal of passion in your heart that needs to be expressed. Let your romantic nature take the reins, and allow your creative nature to blossom. Be assertive with regard to the ones you love. Muster your courage and feel free to take the lead. Be loving and caring without being smothering and clingy. Give others room to breathe."
"Allow my creative nature to blossom? Did you change the words to align with my floral persona?"
Bryn replies with an eye-roll and a resounding answer of no.
"Hmm, I wonder if we should be planning a new event. Or maybe it's referring to the upcoming wedding. Ugh, see this is why I don't read those things! They mess with my mind and I can't afford to have my brain all shaken up."
And after what happened last week with Colt, my brain is definitely pureed. I have been giving him space, letting him process the bomb I dropped on him in the corn maze. Once we met back up with the remaining Reeve brothers, we pushed it back, acting normal and sharing smiles with them. I drove myself home and threw myself into work preparing for the Kane wedding that is fast approaching.
"Okay, well I was more intrigued by the part about letting your passion and romantic nature take the reins." She wiggles her eyebrows at me and I smack her leg.
"Get your mind out of the gutter! It was one kiss and I haven't even seen him since." I made the mistake of telling Bryn about the kiss Colton and I shared in the maze, leaving out all the rest of what happened after. She is convinced that we are going to rekindle our old flame, but I still don't know where his head is at with everything I confessed.
"This is a sign that you should reach out to him. I mean if the stars say you should, we are supposed to follow them right?" If I know anything about Bryn, it's that she will follow anything that gives her direction so that she doesn't have to make the choices for herself.
Bryn's phone starts vibrating, sliding across the coffee table until she scoops it up. When she reads the screen, her perfectly plucked waggling brows cast down into a frown.
"What is it?"
