Playing with Fire || David & Amber
Amber: leaned over the steering wheel as she drove, misty eyes scanning the unusually bright blue sky for signs of the incoming weather the radio warned about, shaking her head as she sat back in the driver's seat of her '68 Mustang "Bullshit, not a single cloud jackass" she grumbled while she flipped the radio off and tuned into the playlist on her phone. One last listen before she deleted that too.
She hadn't denied she was having more trouble than usual getting over him - it had been weeks and she still jumped every time her phone buzzed, a silent voice in the back of her mind hanging on to a thin thread of hope that he was missing her as much as she missed him. Not one text though, not a single call and the few words they had spoken online had been strained to say the very least. Maybe it was guilt that kept her hanging on, clinging to the chance to redeem herself but in her gut, she knew it ran deeper.
Amber had never been the kind of girl to rush too far ahead, she was a romantic but she was also a realist and in most of her previous relationships she'd been the one to slow things down to a sometimes agonizing pace. David though had thrown her heart and mind for a loop and the tables had completely turned on her. Suddenly she was the one wanting more of him, more of his time and attention. She'd panicked though and admittedly screwed up in the worst possible way but, even though she hadn't right, a part of her was angry that it'd had been so (seemingly) easy for him to walk out and not look back. She hated herself for being 'that girl' - she'd spent 29+ years priding herself on needing no one but herself, and now she could barely breathe when she imagined her future without him.
She needed to let go, to move on as he had, so at the urging of her little sister she'd packed up every little reminder she had of him around her condo - the worn out Clash t-shirt she'd borrowed without any intentions of returning, the handful of selfies she'd had printed and stuck on her fridge, even the almost empty bottle of whiskey he'd drank from the night she'd confessed and he'd stormed out of her life for good. They all sat neatly packed in a box on the passenger seat beside her. The ritual of burning the reminders was symbolic at best - a way to physically let go of everything she'd been hanging on to in hopes that her emotional attachment would follow suit.
By the time she pulled her car down the familiar gravel road, she was wishing she'd skipped the mascara though - each song on the playlist bringing another surge of emotion that poured out if her like faucet and left dark streaks over her cheeks. Her hands gripped at the steering wheel as she rolled to a stop, staring ahead at the very spot she'd stood the moments she knew she was in love with him. She hadn't said it - it was way too soon then - but she'd felt it through every inch of her being and it wasn't just because he'd jumped to her defense when their Bigfoot hunt had turned into a near miss with an oversized bear (though that hadn't hurt). It was him, everything about him. The slightly wild look in his eyes when he'd chased the unwanted company off, the way he laughed at himself, the way he looked at her when he'd turned back to check on her.
The memory of that look quickly faded though, replaced by the hurt and betrayed gaze he'd had the night she fessed up. With a sigh as heavy as her heart she collected the box, along with some matches and climbed out of the car, using the sleeve of her hoodie to dry her cheeks while she began the hunt for sticks to start a fire.
