Text messages ignored turned into the midnight phone calls that lasted hours becoming midday, two second conversations. Calling his friends to see if he was alright instead of hearing the words from his own mouth, it was your worst fear and it turned into truth overnight.
You had been forgotten by the man who filled your every thought, every vein with emotions you had not let yourself feel for the fear of being unwanted, unloved again someday. That day was apparently Tuesday when you realized you hadn't heard from him in a week and simultaneously that you didn't care.
It didn't take long for the magazine lies to reveal truth, the brunette on his arm did not even closely resemble you and the smile on his face hadn't been for you in so long.
It was a phonecall in the early hours of the morning to Calum, rushed and broken apart as you yelled nonsense, drunken thoughts that he listened to because he knew what Luke was doing, he knew what he'd bee doing and lied to you for him.
Calum tried explaining, apologizing for the both of their lies but somewhere in your stupor you realized he had known, they all did even though he wouldn't explicitly admit to it. They were your friends too and Calum knew you didn't need to be alone right now but eventually he had to cop to it when you started sobbing on the other line, anger giving way to despair, the sadness that gathered in your chest with a forceful wave.
You didn't call them, answer the multiple apologizing voicemails and text messages. You turned to a friend you had, had since diapers and let his kindness fill you with love like yours had done for him so many times. He had known you all of his life but he had never seen you so broken, you were the strong one and he didn't know how to shoulder such heavy walls but managed nicely until the door to your new apartment practically broke down.
You stared up at him, the emotion on your face that had been there dropped and you masked your expression as you stood up from the couch an the comfort of arms that could never fix you when the person that had so easily broken you was standing in your foyer.
"What is he doing here?" You knew what Luke asked, you also knew that isn't what he meant.
"Don't be hypocritical." You spat, the voice in your head had more choice words to say but the pain in your heart knew you had to get him to leave as soon as possible if you didn't want to fall into his trap.
"Can you give us privacy?" He questioned like he had not just broken into your house that your best friend had been invited into and he most certainly had not.
"Of course. I will call the man that I married and let him know I am staying here tonight." He snarked, waiting for you to nod before taking leave in your bedroom.
"I know what it looked like but you don't understand." He began but you could not handle anymore lies.
"It looks like you were so busy with your toy that you forgot to keep up appearances by calling the person you're actually in a relationship with." You snarked, waiting for something. For him to apologize again like he had in the text messages he always saw the read check mark on, for him to make proclamations of his love for you. You waited for anything, something that he would never do because the boy in front of you had never been man enough to own up to wrongdoings.
"I'm sorry." It took him about two, if not three, minutes of silence to gather the words and that was all he had to say for himself? "I regret it." You pointed to the phone as the words left his lips,
"I know, I've heard that but I also can't forget it. The image of you two, the magazines. I've tried but you just don't understand that regretting it, telling me you regret it does not change the fact that I constantly wonder what it was exactly, what it was about her that made you leave me. What it was that made you go with her." You shook your head, you didn't know what you could say when he had this defiant glare like he would fight for something he didn't know didn't exist anymore.
Any love you had disappeared with the image of his naked body pressed to hers, their porcelain skin glistening as he whispered promises he had made to you in her ears as they made loveless love in the moonlight. The image of them, thought of his lips pressed to hers as the adrenaline of knowing they were about to do something wrong rushing through them as they did it anyways. Hers beating because she knew she had won, stolen something that never belonged to you in the first place and his matching hers because the rush of getting away with it, the reckless behaviour so many had warned you he had coming to light in the most toxic of ways and you wondered if there were others but you didn't want to know, the thought of a yes would cripple you but an actual knowledge of it could do no good.
"Is there anything I can do, anything I can say?" He had started to get it, how royally he had snafued this relationship. He could have had something so immeasurable, costing nothing and worth everything but he let it slip through the cracks of his fingers for a one night stand and rush of adrenaline.
"I can't erase it. I can't get it out of my head, it just keeps replaying and the thought of you, your lips ever touching me and whispering to me like you did with her." You didn't have to finish, the disgust in your voice so resplendent that he didn't need an explanation. "I think about it all the time, I couldn't stop thinking about you not caring about me enough, being heartless enough to do this to another person. It doesn't make sense but you won, whatever game this was to you, you won because it's something that I can never forget. I will never be able to love someone as unashamedly as I have loved you. You ruined that for me so congratulations."
Eyes of wicked torment, care and concern for you so hidden beneath arrogance and irritation at your words, bore into yours. Neither of you needed clairvoyance to know where this conversation would peak so with the softest smile, he took pity on you and decided to extend the olive branch to you as he took a tentative step forward. He had no doubts about what he had done, lips pressing to your forehead with a purpose. He would never be lucky enough to have that pleasure again, to feel soft skin or to kiss tender lips. He knew better than attempting to kiss you, you didn't deserve that and he most certainly didn't.
You would wonder, what if's would run through your mind when you laid down for quite a while. The questions of 'what if he and I were soulmates?' and 'what if I can't love the next one as much as I loved him?' And those quickly made way for if she knew what she'd done, what she had ruined because she couldn't take her hands off of him, the only person you'd loved. If she questioned her morals, if demons creeped in because of what she'd done to you. You doubted it when you were quick to pass magazine racks immortalizing their love story they could not know that start of. That it started with hands that shouldn't have wandered, thoughts that shouldn't have roamed. You let him keep that, you let him keep fame and love when he had so easily taken it from you but not for them. For the boys who worked so hard to get out of the slums, for fans who looked for an escape from reality instead of more damaging material. They deserved to know exactly the person they looked to for joy but they also deserved the joy that had been denied to you. You couldn't take away safety from someone else when it had been ripped from you so cruelly.
You would find someone, someday that you were enough for, that loved you because you were enough and so much more. For now, you would hurt and you would mend pieces of your heart that didn't quite fit back together, having been chipped away at too many times, but you would sew them and glue them and tape them.
Because you were more than the boy who didn't see what beauty could come from an unpolished diamond.
Requested: By a lovely anon.
If you do not want to be in a relationship with someone anymore, break up with them. Does it hurt? Yes. Is it better than cheating? So much yes. Cheating is one of the most horrendous and uncalled for thing you can do to a person so don't do it.
This was longer than expected but this song had me feeling some type of way. Thank you for the request. :)
Request here. Masterlist.