They Come Unstuck | Isabelle
izzy-mueller:
Her hands balled into a fist, leaving crescent shaped imprints in its wake. She untangled herself from his embrace, shivering slightly as she settled back onto the cold sand. The blonde thought about his question, not knowing exactly how to answer it. “I don’t know,” she replied softly, refusing to meet his gaze. Her emotions for Stan seemed to trump all logic, but she didn’t want to voice the thought. Izzy didn’t want to open herself back up to him only to be rejected once more, like she had in the past. Every encounter with him was like riding a wave - they rose and rose until they came crashing down, causing chaos in their wake.
She wanted to tell him that it was him, and that it would always be him. She would always choose him, if he’d let her. Instead, the words that fell from her lips were, “I guess I thought the same thing. Fuck and be on my way. I mean, that’s what we were, weren’t we? We were just fuck buddies. I guess that’s how we should go. Out with a bang, you know?” she laughed sadly, hating the way his words affected her. She hated how they made her chest hurt and hated their situation. It was always the wrong time when it came to the two of them.
“Isn’t it already a bit late for that? Ruining a good thing?” she asked bitterly, thinking about all the times they could have been, but never was. When it came to Stan, there were a lot of almost. Almost boyfriend, almost lover. “We were a good thing.” The blonde pursed her lips and finally mustered up the courage to look at Stan, waiting for a response.
Stan took a deep breath in. “We were so much more than that,” he told her with a small sigh. It was true, Stan and Isabelle were so much more than just fuck buddies. Even if they agreed on no strings, it ended with both of them getting tangled up in them. He thought back to when he first met Isabelle. Fresh off of a break up, and he wanted nothing of the relationship sort. Even when he met Isabelle he didn’t just want to fuck her. Hence why the two of them were friends with benefits. But turns out you can’t be friends with benefits without somebody getting hurt in the end. And it wasn’t just one person that got sucked in with the tides, it was both of them. The ocean carried the pair out to sea, drowning them both because the bond they created was stronger than the tides. “You know we were so much more than that,” he pulled his knees up to his chest and let out a soft sigh as he looked out into the silvery water.
The words fell off of Izzy’s lips and Stan felt them sink into his chest as if she had just stabbed him. “And then we ruined it,” his voice monotone, careful not to show any emotion that was too strong. “Do you remember the first time we came out here,” he started. “It was a night just like this, well actually it was this night,” he laughed, not caring if it sounded weird that he had remembered that. “I told you everything, even things that I’m too scared to tell anybody else,” he sighed. “Yeah, we had fucked a few times already, in fact we fucked a lot. But I remember kissing you,” the corner of his mouth twitched up as he stared blankly into the ocean. “And it wasn’t a kiss where we shoved each other’s tongues down our throats, it was the kiss,” he shook his head, letting a small chuckle escape his lips. “I hate sounding cliche, and I’m going to,” he warned the blonde, “but I had never been more scared in my life when I kissed you. Well, I thought it was fear that I was feeling. The feeling was foreign, but fear was the closest emotion that I could connect it back to. So I ran,” he laughed, disappointment laced in the gesture. “That’s what you do when you’re afraid, you run,” he felt like he needed to justify why he just left. He ran his tongue along the front of his teeth, allowing him to think for just another moment.
“It took me a long time to realize what exactly I was feeling. At first is was fear, fear because nobody had ever made me feel that way, and something new is always frightening,” he started in his long explanation of what emotions he felt. “Then it was denial. Jess came back and I thought, this is love, this is it. She is love. She’s the only person I’ve ever loved,” he laughed at the thought of it now. “And then it was jealousy. When I saw you with Shane, or Mason, or whoever the fuck you were with, I was jealous. Even a part of me now is starting to feel it sink into my skin and pump in my veins. I didn’t even know why I was jealous you weren’t mine, you were never mine,” he shook his head, making sure to keep his eyes on the tides. “Then it was anger. For whatever reason, I was mad at you because it was the only thing that made sense. You made me feel this way, you were the reason why I wasn’t happy,” he let out a shaky breath before finally breaking for the ocean to look over at the blonde who was only illuminated by the moonlight. “But I was wrong. I realized that you were the only reason why I was happy. And when I didn’t have you, I was empty,” he caught her eyes in his gaze for a moment before he looked down at the sand that was underneath him. “I still am empty,” he admitted in a defeated tone. “Whenever I would think about you, I would smile. I would spend nights laying awake, just thinking about everything that we were, everything that we could’ve been. And it took me so long to realize that this was love. You were love,” he finally said, looking up at the girl for some sort of response.
