ATTENTION: Important announcement at the end! Don't miss it!! :)

***

"How old even are you??? You don't need someone to come over just to make you breakfast!"

"I'm serious Christina; I can't cook! You've seen that!"

"You can learn if you try! But this is just getting sick, Brax! You have to grow up! How will you fend for yourself when you need to?? I can't be around all the time!"

They were little arguments.

We apologized later of course, but how would it suffice if there was nothing other than this happening in our lives?

"We just... changed, Harley. We changed with time, like people do," I say quietly, shrugging as I kick a pebble on the sidewalk. There's not much I can say. It happened slowly, quietly. "We drifted apart. It just... happened. Sometimes change happens for the better, but you have to leave something behind with it."

Harley is silent. There's a crease between his eyebrows, like he's thinking over what I said.

"Is there really nothing you could've done?" he asks. His voice seemed to have gripped the matter. He won't let go unless he finds a definite answer.

I shake my head.

"But you two loved each other. Was that not enough? Couldn't you have tried to make it work?"

He has gripped the matter.

"Harley, drop it. I told you; no." I grit my teeth and look away, down to my shoes. "Love doesn't fix everything. Get that through your head. That—what you believe—it's a fairytale. It's much more complicated than that."

I shouldn't tell him this. He's always looked on the bright side of things no matter what, stayed cheerful in dark times for the rest of us. I shouldn't be corrupting him like this. Crushing his fairytales.

Harley goes quiet. The sudden reality seems to have hit him like a truck. He stares down in disbelief, trying to process it.

"R-really? It doesn't work?"

"More often than not." I shrug. It's a nonchalant gesture, but I'm anything but nonchalant. "But for your sake, Harley, I hope you find someone who proves me wrong. Because I... I've seen other things. Believed in them."

"What do you...?" he seems shaken.

"Sometimes you can't become the person you want to be with the one you love. You can't be the person they make you. You have to sacrifice one for the other." I sigh and look at him. Harley is a good kid—because he's the only innocent one left of us.

He deserves better.

I'm sorry, I want to tell him. I should tell him. He doesn't deserve this from me. He doesn't deserve me—a jerk like me.

"Alright then," Harley smiles before I open my mouth. It's a weak smile, but I appreciate him for trying so hard. "See you tomorrow at work, Brax. You're going to be there right?"

"Y-yeah..." I answer, running a hand through my hair. He caught me off-guard.

Apologize, Braxton.

He smiles again and turns to leave.

And like the coward I am, I don't stop him.

***

A/N: Finally able to update, at least once! My hiatus is nowhere near over, sadly, but I'm going to try my best to keep this going.

Also, I've been feeling really dragged lately. It's probably the quarantine growing on me... but in any case, I feel like I should put this book on hold because I'm really not feeling it.

To be honest, I have a lot of short stories up my sleeve that I really wanna write! Hopefully I'll get to write them sometime after... uh, 30th, because that's when my exams finish. However, I also have to complete my notebooks, so I don't know.

But I promise I'll have something up here for you guys. Thank you so much for sticking with me and patiently dealing with my unorganized, messy self.

So yeah, let me know what you guys think about putting this on hold and writing the short stories I have thought of for y'all. I'm so excited to show them!! It's a good break to sharpen my writing for the moment too. 😊

Thanks a lot for everything guys, I miss you! 💜

Signed,
InBlack