12/26/16

I DON'T STAY at the Hasting's house Christmas night. I don't even stay for the rest of the party. After Grayson finds me crying my eyes out in the hallway she guides me upstairs and helps me grab a few of my belongings before leaving with me, and driving me to her house. Away from the house that has felt more like a home to me in the past few weeks than anywhere else. Away from Chase, away from Clayton, away from their family who definitely hates me now.

The entire drive is silent as questions hang in the air between my best friend and me. Grayson leads me into her house, the familiarity of the beach house helps to calm the storm inside me as I follow her to her room. I hastily strip of the gorgeous dress that is now ruined for me. Strip off the delicate jewelry that adorns my body. Strip off the makeup that painted me as someone I'm obviously not. Strip away the night that irrevocably scared my heart.

Now in a pair of shorts and an oversized T-shirt I let myself cower under the many sheets and blankets tossed across Grayson's cushy bed. I let myself sink into the soft mattress and soothe my aching chest. I let tears flow freely from their confined cages, and sobs shake my curled up body.

I quickly dose off letting the tears lull me to sleep like restless ocean waves.

My eyes flutter open with what feels like only minutes have passed, but I know it's later because the sun is beginning to peek through the still waters that reflect off the doors that lead into Grayson's room. I quietly let myself admire the ocean secretly always loving that her room lead straight out to the beach.

I want to stay in this single moment forever. Pretend what happened last night was a bad dream. That my best friend doesn't hate me. That the man I love didn't call me a mistake. That I didn't cry myself to sleep. In this moment I realize how easy it would be to turn it all off and fall back into my old habits. How easy it would be to push everything away and act like I'm okay. When truthfully on the inside I feel as if I'm left with the aftermath of a hurricane. Destruction. Loss. Abandoned. 

I slowly turn my body to find the space on the bed next to me empty. My bare feet hit the cool hardwood floor as I rub at my eyes to help wake myself up. I feel heavy and restless and completely empty all at the same time. The memories of the night before hit me hard and the jolt of pain that hits my heart is so overwhelming it almost takes my breath away. I want to cry for Chase. I want to break for Clayton. But instead I stand from the bed and make my way out of Grayson's room in search of my best friend. In search of her wisdom and comfort. As I make my way towards the kitchen I come to a complete halt once I hear her voice, hiding myself slightly behind the corner.

"I don't think you should come over here right now...." I hear my best friend trail hesitantly. Even though I can't see her face I can picture the worry etched into her delicate features.

I can't hear the voice on the other end, but my guess is it's Cale and he has heard from his family about my actions. I cringe at the idea of what happened being twisted and turned into another version of me being loose. A slut. Someone who hooks up with anyone who is willing to make me forget. But that is all so far from the truth. Clayton doesn't make me forget, he makes me remember. Makes me feel alive.

"I don't know Cale," Grayson admits confirming it is in fact her boyfriend on the other end. "She didn't tell me," she adds quietly and I know just from those few words I have hurt someone else I love by hiding a piece of myself from her.

"Okay," she sighs. "Yeah, fine, I'll talk to you later," she finishes but not before adding, "I love you too."

I chew at my bottom lip hating not only that I ruined a night for so many people, but that I also may have just ruined a family along the way. Ruined a relationship between two brothers that was already fragile. But I know for sure I can't let last night harm my friendship with Grayson. I have to come clean about everything and cleanse the darkness that wants to loom in my soul and take over. The same darkness that wants to push me not to feel, to take the easy way out.

I step around the corner and walk the few steps to the kitchen where she is sitting at the island eating some cereal. Her back is to me and her long blonde hair is placed at the top of her head in a messy bun.

"Hi," I attempt to speak but the word comes out as more of a murmur as I walk up behind my friend and sit next to her.

She turns the stool slightly so her body is angled towards me. "Hi," she responds. Neither of us knows where to start as awkward silence fills the air around us. I hate this. We aren't these people. She is my best friend, and we don't have moments like this. Ever. We are each other's confidants, we share, we cry, we tell each other everything. And I know I've hidden so much of myself from her in the past, but I know this lie. This one is the big one, the one that crossed the line and hurt everyone around me.

"Cale hates me doesn't he?" I ask finally lifting my head to look my friend in the eyes.

Grayson's bright blue gaze squints silently with sympathy. "Of course not—"

"You don't have to lie for him Gray," I say cutting her off with a broken sigh.

She runs a hand over her face with a small shrug. "He's just confused because he doesn't know the whole truth about Chase," she reasons. But then she pauses and picks at the hem of her tank for a second uneasiness filling her. "I guess I don't know the full story either," she adds as pain laces through her words.

"Gray—"

"No," she states cutting me off this time. "I knew something was up at lunch the other day when Kylie mentioned a secret guy, but I didn't say anything to you because I'm always afraid I might say something that will push you away," she confesses dropping her eyes from mine. She's always so worried I'm going to run away from her, shove her away. Because I used to fight my feelings, bury them so far down so I couldn't feel anything.

"I'm sorry," I breathe as shame flushes my neck. "I didn't mean to hurt you, or anyone for that matter," I truthfully tell my best friend.

"Then tell me what happened," she pleads. "Tell me how you ended up in a hallway with Clayton," she urges me. But I can still see the apprehension that is evident as day in her crystal eyes. A part of her is still scared I will run away from these questions. From the truth. "Tell me it's a misunderstanding Hayley."

My shoulders fall because I want to tell her it's all one big mistake. That what Chase saw wasn't real. I want to because I want to be the person my best friend is proud of, not the mess that fills me daily. "It's not," I answer honestly.

She shakes her head as shock and confusion weave through her expression. "How?" she questions.

I wet my lips lightly. "I met him the night Cale came for you last year, we were at the same bar and he kissed me," I explain highlighting the main points of what happened a year ago. The night my life changed. The first night I felt alive in years.

Grayson's eyebrows rise and her mouth falls agape slightly. "He kissed you?" she asks with wide eyes.

"I didn't know who he was, I thought it was just some guy, nothing more," I say needing to get across I had no idea who Clayton was that night. No idea his story, his connection to Grayson or her boyfriend. "But at the same time I felt something," I admit softly. I still remember that first kiss as if it just happened. The way he spun me around and crashed into me like two souls who were meant to be one from the beginning of time. Two parts of a puzzle finally coming together after all these years. Two hearts colliding in a mess of dizzying emotion. Pure desire underlined in what I know is love.  

"Wow," Grayson exhales obviously at a loss for words.

I swallow the thick lump in my throat and continue. "And then I agreed to be Chase's girlfriend and I see his brother is Clayton and for a while I didn't think he remembered me," I continue. My body tenses speaking about the way the events of the last few weeks have unfolded. "I mean it was a year ago," I reason softly.

"Did he?" she inquires with a small tilt of her head.

"He pretended he didn't," I let my best friend know. "And we tried to fight our connection believe me Gray but...." I trail off unable to convey the way I feel about Clayton. Because he isn't some guy I just messed around with. He isn't just a guy to make me forget. He's so much more. 

Her eyes flash up to mine. "He's your shooting star," she says with a slight smile pulling at the edges of her lips. I will never forget the story of Cale's grandmother telling him to wait for a woman who elicits the same emotion in him as the first time he saw a shooting star. It's simple. It's beautiful. It's everything.

But Clayton is much more than a shooting star.

"He's every damn star in the sky," I say as tears line my eyes and I know in this moment my best friend understands. Because she once lost her shooting star and it took her four years and a lot of heartbreak to get him back.

* * * *

"Okay," Grayson sighs as we come to a stop outside the Hasting home. The house that once seemed so enormous and daunting seems smaller now. I know the family that resides inside it. I know their small rituals and how much they love each other. The house feels familiar in a way that strikes my heart and sends a resounding pain throughout my limbs. Because now I'm an unwanted stranger in a place that felt more like home then my own home.

"You sure they're gone?" I question anxiously as my teeth worry at my bottom lip.

My best friend nods reassuringly. "Cale said they are all out and left the side door unlocked for you," she says. I left in such a hurry last night I wasn't able to grab all my belongings. The thought crossed my mind to text Chase and see if he can grab my things, but I quickly nixed the idea. He hates me. He would probably burn my clothes instead.

Cale hates me also I'm sure of it, but he loves Grayson so he helped her help me. She's also leaving early with me tomorrow and we're driving back to school. I told her I could lay low at her house so she could have more time with Cale, but she told me I was what was important right now. I always knew it deep down, but I truly realized in that moment that I don't deserve a best friend like Grayson.

I step out of her car and sneakily slide my way into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom I once shared with a friend. The nights I wasn't slipping away to be with Clayton I would stay up laughing with Chase. Remembering wild funny nights from the past year. Telling each other stories of our past that only each other could understand. Heat rises in my chest and hits my eyes wanting to break at the thought of losing someone who understands me like no one else. We are more similar then he ever knew, we were both lost and wandering in this world. But I owned up to my faults and tried to change for the better. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm trying.

Chase came to terms with himself, but he also won't own up to his faults.

My suitcase sits on the bed as I begin to throw my belongings into the bag not bothering with folding anything as I just want to get out of this house as fast as possible. I know I have some time, but the time frame isn't exact here and I don't want to have to face the family that is disgusted with me. I want to cry at the thought of what they think of me. What they're saying about me now. But I hold in the storm that wants to escape and continue to pack.

A sound hits my ears freezing me for a second and sending my pulse into overdrive. My body rotates slowly on my heels to be greeted with eyes the color of his favorite liquor. His hair is messy, his jaw locked, and his hands stuffed into his front pockets. His emotions messy, and everywhere. I can feel them hitting me, pulling at the worn edges of my heart.

"What are you doing here?" I ask my as my words tremble faintly. I didn't expect to see him again let alone so soon. I told him I loved him last night, and he told me I was a mistake.

He lifts his phone awkwardly. "I was driving separately and forgot this so I turned back around," he explains. His eyes wash over me as if he can't believe he's seeing me, but then they drop as if he can't stand to stare at me for too long. "I heard someone come in," he tells me as his eyes rake over the mess of clothing behind me on the bed piecing together my reason for being here. Maybe even on why Cale insisted on having them leave.

"Oh," I respond faintly not really knowing how to respond to his words. To this moment. To this man.

"I'm sorry," Clayton breathes as he takes a small step into the room. His eyes lift to mine and I can see he isn't sorry about how everything went down last night. He isn't sorry about his brother and mother's reaction. He's sorry it ever happened. He's sorry he ever kissed me, touched me, loved me.

He's sorry, and if my heart could break anymore it does in this moment.

Clayton's apology just makes the sadness inside me fester and grow into something different. Burning slowly into an anger I don't want to be inside me but I can't stop. Because I don't want him to apologize. I don't want him to hate what happened between us. I want him to see how beautiful we were, are, how achingly perfect our hearts fit together even after all the damage to them.

We rose from the ashes of death and still found each other. But he can't see it. He can't see past the lie Chase cloaked us in.

I turn back around towards the bed, and begin to slam the clothing into my suitcase. My body shakes with the resentment that flows through my veins. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel these mix of hateful emotions towards Chase, but they are growing and filling me in a way that I can't stop.

I'm not sorry about anything that happened between myself and Clayton and I won't pretend that I am. "It's fine he'll get over it," I respond harshly. I don't care about trying to play the girlfriend role in this moment. I know my words come off rude and unsympathetic but I don't care in this moment.

A small scoff falls from Clayton's lips. "My brother is in love with you Hayley, and you cheated on him with me that's not just something you get over," he emphasizes. His tense words cause me to turn around and face him once again. "You have to care," he adds with knitted eyebrows and pursed lips.

I don't have enough left in me to lie. I don't have enough left in me to stand up for Chase when he left me by the wayside last night and dismissed my love for his brother. I just don't have enough to speak anything but the truth. So I speak my truth, the only one that matters. "No," I state honestly. "Because I'm in love with you," I tell him earnestly. So heartbreakingly truthful it hurts in a whole new way.

Clayton's face freezes at my words, the same words that shocked him last night. The same words he ignored and then called me a mistake to his mother. "Hayley..." he trails off as if he doesn't know how to respond.

"No," I state pointedly. "Don't act like you don't feel anything," I say pointing at him as tears begin to prick my eyes. He can't deny what we had, no matter how short it was. He can't deny the connection we had, the feeling of being complete once we came together.

Clayton's hands rise as if he's trying to grab at words that he just can't find. "I mean yes," he finally admits hope rising within me without warning, but not before he takes the hope and crushes it. "But you're his, I would never do that to him," he says defensively as if the idea of us together is so far out there. And because to him it is, he still thinks I belong to Chase.

But I don't, and I can't keep up with this lie anymore. I break, I snap, I fall apart because I can't deny what I want. What my heart wants.

My hands shake lightly as emotions crash through me at an overwhelming speed. "It's all fake!" I shout angrily as the small tremors that fill my hand wreck through my whole body.

Clayton takes a step away from me as if I hit him. Shot him with my words as if they were the bullets that sliced through his chest and hurt him. "What do you mean?" he questions almost dazed as if my words don't add up or make any sense.

The words come out faster then I can stop them. "I'm not his girlfriend I'm his friend, his best friend," I confess to the man who has my heart held between his hands. "I'm pretending to be his girlfriend."

"I don't understand," Clayton exclaims as his eyes turn on me and go wild. He groans as bewilderment races through his body. "Why would Chase lie?" he asks me his words hard. "This doesn't make sense."

The emotion burning through me suddenly explodes under the pressure of his questions. The next two words fly out of my mouth before I can even comprehend the damage they will do. "He's gay!" As soon as the words leave my hand slaps over my mouth in utter disbelief that I just outted by friend. No matter how much he hurt me, what I just did can never be fixed. I feel my heart race and disgust roll through me as I can't even believe I just said what I did to Clayton.

If my words earlier sliced through him, these words stopped his heart. His eyes widen, and his eyes lock on mine in pure puzzlement. But shock and confusion quickly begin to morph into something darker as uncontrollable rage begins to fill his tall frame.

"Don't you dare say that," he yells at me his face tinged red with heated emotion.

My mind is racing at what I've just done. I don't know what to say in this moment to fix this, and I realize there isn't anything I can say or do that will fix the bullet I just shot into Clayton. I want to stand down. I want to tell him my words are a lie. I want to say so many things in this moment. But the bigger part of me doesn't want to stand down because I want to stop lying.

"Why it's the truth?" I shrug knowing I've all but put the nail in the coffin for any future relationship with Clayton or Chase. Knowing it's all over in this moment a sense of calmness reminiscent of death fills me. Almost as I've given up, on everything.

"He isn't gay," Clayton counters. "I would know. I'm his brother," he fights back. I can see the anger masking the true underlying emotion here. Hurt. And I want to tell him I am lying to take that away from him. Because even if he hurt me, and even if he doesn't ever want me again, I don't want to see him this way. Ever.

"It's the truth," I whisper completely deflated in this moment and hating myself more than I ever thought possible for what I've just done.

He shakes his head and steps back towards the doorway of the room. Away from me. "You're lying to cover up the fact that you're a cheater who slept with me," he spits at me. The Clayton I once knew, the Clayton I loved, still love, is no longer here. In his place is a man who is filled with fear of the truth and anger at the idea that his own brother could be lying to him. He can't see the truth, he doesn't want to see it or believe it.

"I'm not a cheater," I tell him as strongly as I can. But I'm weak now. The strength drained out of me. "And you made the decision to cross that line with me also," I say in defense hating the tears that yearn to fall. Almost as if my body, my heart, knows it's over before my head.

"Yeah, but I'm not making up lies to make it okay," he says before disappearing out of the door, out of the bedroom, and out of my life.

I don't know how to act or how to feel in this moment besides broken. Completely and utterly broken to pieces. Pieces I'm scared will never heal. So slowly and with a shattered heart I zip the suitcase shut and make my way downstairs. I climb into Grayson's car silently my face warm and my hands shaking.

"Are you okay?" she asks gently placing a hand on my own.

"No," I whisper as the tears I've been holding back finally escape. They rage like a storm. Crash like wild waves. Leave a path of destruction in their wake like a hurricane.

Leaving me lost when I had truly began to feel like I'd been found.