Never Say You're Sorry

You know that expression about elephants and how they seem to end up in rooms when something awkward happens? Yes? Well right now I'm thinking a whole safari must have crammed itself into my poor little apartment.

"You don't have to tell me," he said look back at the ceiling, "it's of no consequence to me."

One thing about Daelyn was that he could be both honest and brutally honest. There's a difference one stings the other one doesn't and his words stung but only a little. He was telling me the cold hard truth, whatever I told him at this point whether it be the truth or a lie, it wouldn't really affect him in the long run. What is a liar to the honest?

If there's anything I strive to be, besides a karaoke beast, its an honest woman. So the next thing I know I'm stuttering out everything that happened in the previous hours and singing like a canary. It felt wonderful and terrible all at once. On the one hand I finally got all the shit that went down (which for a girl who spends her Saturday nights watching Doctor Who re-runs was a lot) off my chest but at the same time I felt like I was somehow betraying Jack. Wasn't this his secret too?

By the end of my confession I was practically blubbering. All you had to do was stick me in a box and I would have been calling out 'Father forgive me!' I don't do well under stress.

"And the truth is, the truth is that I really have no idea what he was doing," I finished. There it was all laid out on the table. It was then that I just realized that I had relayed my entire night to a nearly complete stranger but I have done weirder things like that one night in Vegas.

"You had quite a night," he said looking a bit dazed as though he was taking it all in. Then he shot me that smile that made my heart race it was almost like Jack's but Daelyn's was lighter, softer, like a breeze. Jack's smile was like a hurricane.

"Well that's really the understatement of the year isn't it?" he says after really thinking over what he just said. I offered him a shakey smile but it must have looked like a grimace. He took my hand and squeezed it lightly. It was slightly clumsy and maybe even awkward but it was comfort.

The silence was comfortable and so very safe but it was about time it ended. I yawned and it dawned on the both of us just how late or rather early it was.

"I guess I should be going, its kinda...well early," he mumbled scratching the back of his head with a pensive look of confusion etched across his features. I just had to giggle at how adorable it looked. I nodded in agreement and led him to the door.

"Thanks," I started just a little bit awkward, "for everything I don't think I'd have been able to get him up here without your help."

"It's not a problem," he replied and gave me one of those sweet easy smiles that I was starting to like more and more. "It was really um," he pauses looking for the right word, "interesting?" We both laugh because it was much more than interesting, maybe even traumatizing but that's just how it goes when Jack's involved I guess.

He turns to leave and it would have been perfect just like a movie but then he tripped and it was a nice reminder that this wasn't a movie. It was real.

Daelyn turns and his eyes are laughing at his own clumsiness and can help but grin like an idiot because its over. This stupid, terrible, terrifying night, morning whatever was over and here we were laughing. I had a feeling it wasn't the last time we'd laugh together.

"He seemed nice," mumbled a really groggy voice. It was so strange but I could of sworn beneath the sleepiness, and confusion I hear a bit of edge behind those words.

"Yea he was," I said in a dreamy way, "and how long have you been awake butt-face." I finished sharply. Not to say that he didn't find ways to scare me shitless and surprise me but I knew Jack was up about ten minutes before Daelyn left.

"I think you already know," he replied, and I just raised my eyebrows, livid.

"Aww Maddie, you know me too well!" He was still laying there like a log. It was weird how he seemed so comfortable in my living room on my raggedy old couch. Like he belonged there.

"Yea well you're not as mysterious and cool as you like to think you are J," I answered continuing the witty banter that usually passed between us. He chuckled and stayed where he was. No explanation, no apologies, nothing. There was silence again but this one was thick. It was pregnant with so many questions and accusations. We were in for our first falling out.

'Instant battle plans written on the sidewalk
Mental mystics in a twisted metal car
Tried to amplify the sound of light and love'
- Weekend Wars by MGMT