Into Your Arms

He rolled over in his bed, his back now facing his latest mistake. He stared at the blank wall in front of him. The bed shifted underneath him as he felt an arm slide its way over his side and cling on to his body. He felt sick to his stomach. He wanted nothing to do with her, yet there she was lying in the spot that once belonged to the love of his life.

He always seemed to screw everything up. Once, when he was younger, his mother had made an amazing birthday cake for his father’s birthday. He was bitter because she wouldn’t let him lick the bowl so when she had safely put the cake away he quickly grabbed it and wrecked it. He deeply regretted it later on, he didn’t even know why he did it in the first place. He knew that it was a silly thing to get so worked up over. He quickly learned as he got older that he would make a lot of stupid decisions. So far his worst one was losing her. She was the one thing in his life that he cherished the most, but jealousy got the best of him. Now he was left with nothing but self pity.

The arm around him tightened its grip. He felt suffocated by the smell of her perfume, it wasn’t the scent he longed for. The girl next to him began to stir in her sleep. He cringed at the thought of actually having to converse with her. Most girls would have left already while he was fast asleep, he liked it better that way. Every once and awhile though, there was the one girl who thought that their late night escapades actually meant something.

“Hey baby.” He heard her coo in his ear.

“You need to go home.” He said calmly as he sat up making her arm drop onto the bed.

“But-” She started in protest

“Now.” He said with much more force. He stood up and began to put his clothes on. He could feel her eyes on him as he walked towards the bathroom that was connected to his room. “When I come back out you’d better be gone.”

He slammed the bathroom door and just stood there staring at it until he heard the bed squeak as the girl got up and started to gather things. He felt pretty bad about yelling at her but he didn’t really see any other way to get rid of her. He backed up from the door until his back hit the wall on the other side of the room. He slid down it and buried his face in his hands.

All of his misery and agony started with one tiny misunderstanding. How could he have ever thought that she would cheat on him. It was his own insecurities that ruined everything. He thought that all of the sneaking around was due to another man, oh how wrong he was. Why was it that he automatically thought of the worst thing. Why wasn’t it obvious to him right from the get-go that she was throwing a surprise party for him. He forgot his own birthday during his blind rage.

The night that he broke her heart still burned brightly in his head. All he remembered was going to some local bar and getting completely hammered. Some girl came up to him and the next thing he knew they were back at his place naked. Some would say that it was an accident, that he couldn’t help what his drunken self did. He knew better than that. The look on her face when she walked in on them was pure anger and shock which quickly turned into tears. The one thing he wanted to do more than anything at that moment was run to her and wipe all of her tears away, but doing that would only make matters much worse.

He quickly came to realize that she never cheated on him and never planned to. He tried explaining to her that it was an accident and that it would never happen again but the damage was already done. She turned away and never looked back.

It had been several months since then and he was still trying to drown his pain in alcohol and women. Nothing was working, she was permanently etched into his mind. A smile crept up onto his face as he thought of all the great times that they had. From the moment he laid eyes on her he knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. She was a charming small town girl that had just moved to the city. Her long caramel colored hair was perfect, not one strand out of place. Her blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight. He could faintly see the puffs of air coming out of her mouth from across the street, a sure sign that winter was in full force.

BANG! He was immediately taken from his thoughts as the door to his apartment was slammed shut. Finally the girl was gone and he could move on with his life, sort of.

•••

He took a long hot shower to get rid of her smell. It was the smell of stale alcohol and cheap perfume, not all too pleasant. He got dressed and went to make a pot of coffee. As each day went by, his life seemed to become more and more boring. He started everyday with a cup of coffee seeing as he could barely make it out of the house without one. He would then make his way to the little diner where he worked as a part time cook. As night time came around he would grab his guitar and play tiny gigs anywhere he could find. These only sort of helped pay for his apartment. He was way late with his rent but his paycheck would be coming in sometime the next week.

The day went by slowly, he was having an off day when it came to his cooking. Five meals were sent back to him because they were either overcooked or undercooked. Once he finally was able to leave, it was almost six o’clock. He had this small gig at seven so he had to hurry. He arrived there around six thirty as some band was just finishing up their set. The crowd was small, too small for his liking, but he’d do anything to get some cash. Another band came on right before him, they were some poppy band with two guitars and a keyboard which was apparently supposed to make up for their lack of a bass. The lead singer would have been pretty decent looking if she didn’t have half as much make-up on.

By the time they had finished up, his ears were practically bleeding. He quickly ran backstage before they called him up. All he had was an acoustic guitar so it didn’t take much setting up. He got on stage and sat down on the little stool that they provided him. He introduced himself quickly before he started up on one of his songs. As he sang he quickly looked into the crowd to see what kind of reaction he was getting. Out of the few people that were actually paying attention only a couple seemed pleased with what they heard. It didn’t really bother him all that much though. No one in the crowd seemed to have been interested in any of the bands that had played.

Suddenly something caught his eye in the back of the room by the bar. A flash of caramel hair went running out of the room. He knew right away who it was and what he had to do. Mid-song he just stood up, put down his guitar, and bolted out of the room after her. He needed her more than anything in the world and he was determined to let her see that.

Outside, the temperature had gotten fairly colder. He looked on both sides of the sidewalk to maybe catch another glimpse of her but she was nowhere to be seen, in fact, there was no one at all walking around. The night was a dud. He went to go back inside the building but a yelp caught his attention. He ran into the alley that was next to the bar. There she was as beautiful as ever. his moment of happiness was gone in a blink of an eye though once he noticed the jackass who had her pinned up against the wall. She was whimpering while he placed his hand over her mouth.

“Hey! Leave her alone.” The man turned to look at him with scowl.

“What if I said no?” He retorted.

There was no turning back now as he lunged forward and pushed the guy off of his ex. He felt bones crunching as he plowed his fists into the guys face. The fighting only lasted a couple of minutes until the guy jumped up and ran out of the alley leaving a trail of blood behind.

Once he was gone, it was safe to turn around and see if she was okay. She was gone, again.

•••

Two months later, he was still looking for her. Every time he left his apartment building he was on the lookout for a glimpse of her, he could never find her though. For all he knew, she could be halfway across the globe.

Other than the fact that he couldn’t find the love of his life, things were starting to look up for him. It turned out that the same night that he saw her, there was a talent scout in the audience. He had seen his half a song and decided that he wanted to hear more. He was soon signed to a small indie label and was in the midst of recording an EP. Everything was looking up for him but there was still that one part of him that was missing…

“You have one new message.” the robotic voice of the answering machine had always seemed to sooth him. No one ever understood why, he didn’t really either.

“Hey, it’s me,” the message started. “I never got to thank you that night when you helped me. I was in such a rush to get away from that guy that I didn’t even think to turn around. When I saw you in the bar, I couldn’t believe my eyes. So many emotions came at me at once, I needed to get out of there. I was hoping that we could maybe meet up somewhere to chat. So call me on this number…”

It wasn’t even one second later that he had the phone pressed to his ear waiting for her to pick up. He felt butterflies enter his stomach as he waited. After what seemed like an eternity, he could here the phone pick up.

“Hello?” the sweet voice that he missed so much talked into the other end of the receiver.

“Uh, hey…” he started, not really sure what to say.

“Braden? Is that you?”

“Yes Kylie, it’s me.”

They stayed up all night catching up with each other. He said he was sorry a million times, she said it was fine a million times. As they chatted and rang up their phone bills, Braden could finally feel everything fall into place. He felt that maybe everything would finally be alright and that just maybe the world wasn’t entirely against him.

By the time they hung up with each other it was 5 o’clock in the morning. Braden plopped his head down onto his pillow and quickly fell into one of the greatest slumbers that he had had in a long time.