For Us (The Girl I Loved Duet 2)

But that’s gone. She’s gone. I have to accept that.

Even if it still hurts as much as the day she walked away from me.

But now at least one of the people I’ve lost has come back. I want to believe that I won’t be the one who’s always abandoned. That there isn’t something about me that drives people away. Mom coming back, I can make it work this time. We can be a family. We can be happy. Maybe she’ll come to L.A. with me. Maybe it will be so perfect that I won’t go to L.A. There are a million possibilities and there’s relief and hope in all of them.

Peace spreads in my chest, and I haven’t felt that in a long time, and the adrenaline falls out of me. I’m tired when I get home from a shift, but after the rush, it feels like I can’t keep my eyes open. I kick off my shoes and blearily set an alarm on my phone for the morning. I don’t even have the energy to move right now. Instead I stretch out on the couch, and close my eyes. I’ll move to my bed at some point, I just need five minutes…

I wake with a start, and my phone is glowing. It’s completely dark in my living room and the phone tells me that it’s five A.M. There’s a text from that number, with a message.

Just bought my ticket for Tuesday! I’ll arrive at 11:00 A.M. See you then!

I scrub my hand over my face and heave myself off the couch. Tuesday. It’s Friday morning. I’m going to see my mom in four days. Four days seems like the longest and shortest time in the world. I collapse into bed and manage to plug in my phone before falling asleep with those words repeating in my head. Four days. Four days. Four days.

Four days…

4

Peter

Present

This spot is equally beautiful during the day. I didn’t want to be in my house, and I didn’t want to be in public. I can’t go back to Amber’s apartment, and this was the first place I thought of: that beautiful overlook on Mulholland Drive that she brought me to. Probably not the best idea to come here given the fact that I’m trying not to obsess. But why am I kidding myself? I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about her anyway.

I was just so angry that I let myself lose control, but I feel like an idiot. I shouldn’t have walked away from her like that. I can’t exactly accuse Amber of giving up on us when she probably thinks that I did the exact same thing. But she did give up on us. She thought that I would bail or ruin her life again, just because I would care more about the dream of us than the person in front of me. It hurts.

Maybe she was right, maybe there’s just too much baggage and too much history between us for it to ever be normal again. But I still want that. I still want her. After all these years of being the person who people abandon, I don’t want to be the one that walks away. I will if that’s what she wants, what she really wants, but I need some time before I ask her that.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I ignore it. Amber has been calling me almost non-stop since I walked out of her apartment two days ago, but I just…can’t. I need to clear my head and get through all of this shit, and every time I talk to her, everything goes out the window.

Our entire history is turning over in my mind, from that first day when Amber approached me in the snow to our first kiss and then when she fainted in my arms. Other moments too. Happy moments, sad moments, our fights and how we made up. And now, how we’ve danced around each other and finally come together just to be torn apart by an unfortunate headline and our own history.

The whole reason I’m up here is that I don’t want to give up on us, but I don’t know what to say when I see her tomorrow. How am I going to react to her in a way the crew is going to perceive as normal? If she’s that worried about our careers, then I want to be as professional as possible. But I’m far past professional at this point. I just need to figure it out, until she’s willing to talk to me again.

My phone buzzes again, and even though I want to talk to her, I don’t pick up. The things we have to say to each other aren’t things that can be said over the phone. But given how persistent she’s been in calling, maybe she does want to talk. Or maybe not.