When I Look At You

It was a cool November night in Boston, and here I sat for the third week in a row at my friend's downtown bar. Though I'm not saying I hadn't spent time here before. I took another swig of my drink, beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol taking over. There were about six empty glasses sitting in front of me, each of them once filled and bought for me by random guys I had met throughout the night so far. I was only just beginning to feel drunk because of my high tolerance level for alcohol. After all, I had spent a lot of time here to develop my tolerance.

"I thought you told me you'd take it easy tonight," the bartender and my friend, Jake, said.

"Maybe I did, but maybe it's you that wants me to take it easy," I retorted with a smirk.

"Kegan, I shouldn't tell you not to drink, because that would totally contradict why I have this job," Jake explained. "But you don't have to go crazy over it."

"Are you telling me I have a problem?"

"No; however you may develop one if you keep consuming alcohol at this rate," he finished after I downed the last of my seventh drink.

"I'll be fine, Jake," I persuaded. "I've handled it before, I can handle it now."

"If you say so." He furrowed his eyebrows and creased his lips into a line.

"You know," Jake began again. "I don't think Milan would be too happy to see you doing this to yourself." I balled my hands into fists and sighed angrily at the thought of Milan. I had dated Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic for nearly a year, something that I regretted right now. All he did was make my life a mess and make me absolutely intolerable. Because of him I spiralled downhill, and now I was only starting to get over him. Yet since Jake brought him up, all those feelings seemed to be washing away.

"He didn't care then to stop me, why would he care now?"

"I don't think Milan gave up on you. I think you gave up on Milan. And yourself."

"He was the one who broke up with me! If anyone gave up it was him. Could you get me another Jack too?" Jake took my glass and refilled it.

"He tried and tried for so long to get you to handle yourself but you wouldn't have any of it. You were fed up with him trying to, as you put it, 'control you', when really he was trying to help you. In the end he was fed up with watching you destroy yourself." That was pretty deep for Jake. I still didn't want to believe it.

"Why is everyone on his side?" I shouted. I downed my Jack Daniels, and putting a $20 on the bar, stood up to leave. I felt sick to my stomach.

"Bye, Jake. It was nice to see you," I said through gritted teeth.

I hit the restroom before I left and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I had barely even made it there to begin with but I felt relieved when it was all out. My stomach felt better but my emotions were still out of wack. The image of Milan's face flooded my mind and it made me sick.

I began to feel extremely warm. Taking a paper towel I wet it under the faucet and pressed it to my forehead. I checked the time; it was 10:27. Early for me to be leaving a bar on a Saturday night and frankly I didn't care. I just wanted to get out of here.

The brisk Boston air should have felt good on my skin but I wasn't able to find out. I walked out the door and bumped shoulders with someone who was coming in.

"I'm sorry," we said as we both turned to face each other. My eyes were met with a dark brown pair of eyes I had seen all too many times.

"Kegan?" I looked away when he said my name. I didn't want to look at Milan. Instead I slunk over to the wall of the building and sat down. Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks so I let my brown locks cover my face. I didn't want him to see me like this. I guess I had no choice though.

Milan knelt down in front of me and brushed my hair aside. His hand brushed under my chin so I looked up at him with sad, pathetic eyes. The concerned look on his face was enough to make me feel even more like shit, and I just broke down.

"Kegan, are you okay?" His face was blurred from my tears but I could tell he still held his concerned expression. His question floored me though.

"Am I okay? I'm crying, Milan. I am NOT okay!"

"I-I'm sorry. Kegan, I didn't know what else to say."

"You shouldn't have said anything. It's pretty obvious when a person is upset that they are not okay. Why do you even care anyways?"

"When I left you you said you were fine so I just left it alone. I knew it wasn't true but you were better then than you are now. I want you to be okay," he yelled.

"If you knew I wasn't okay then either why didn't you help me?" I continued to choke up as we fought.

"Kegan, god, are you so blind? I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that you didn't want my help!" He got me there. I had never wanted his help. I was fine in my eyes, there was nothing to fix.

I looked back up at him. His eyes gave me the sense of peace that I had been missing and I realized what a big mistake I had made.

Milan never deserved to deal with the trouble I caused. He did the right thing by trying to help me when I didn't want to help myself. I felt horrible for having abused Milan like I did. He shouldn't have been put through it.

As I said before, these past three weeks I've been at this bar wasn't the only time I'd spent here. I came here often when I was dating Milan after we'd get into fights. It all started when I brought him here and I drank a little too much and ended making out with a random guy. Cliché bar mannerisms, but who thinks clearly when they're drunk?

Needless to say, Milan was a little pissed about it and he took me home immediately afterwards. He talked to me about it and how I should control myself when we go out drinking. I insisted I was fine but then when I got out of control the next time, and the next time, and the time after that, well, we had a problem.

Again and again Milan would fight with me about it, and to me I was still okay. There wasn't anything wrong with me. Then again, fighting with him made me want to go back to the bar and drink more, or I would drink at home. And Milan was not happy about that either.

I told him I was sick of him controlling me because I was 'fine'. I told him to lay off, and when he finally listened to me I ended up being so much worse off than I was when I was with him. I guess I asked for it though. Like the stubborn bitch I was, I played it off like it was nothing and I just wanted to forget him.

Yet now, as I looked in his eyes, I wished I hadn't ever tried to forget him. I needed him despite all the denials. I began to cry again, harder than before, and Milan wrapped me up in his arms. Never before had I felt so helpless.

"Let me take you home," I heard him say between my sobs. My arms slithered around his neck as he picked me up off the ground. I could feel his shirt getting soggy from my tears.

Milan set me in the passenger seat of his SUV and buckled me in before taking his seat at the wheel. He held my hand over the center console the entire ride back to my apartment. I recieved worried looks from him whenever we hit a red light and he would occasionally stroke his thumb over the top of my hand.

I fell asleep before I made it home and then woke up slightly when I felt Milan pick me up to carry me inside. He still had the spare key for my apartment from when we dated so he didn't have to bother me about getting in. Not long after he opened the door I found myself being gently set on my bed and blankets were pulled over my torso. The bed shifted when Milan laid on it next to me.

I opened my eyes to see Milan looking at me again. The way he looked at me made me feel at home and relaxed as it did before. I knew that I couldn't keep living the way I had been for the past few weeks anymore. I needed Milan, and I knew I belonged with him.

"I'm sorry," I whispered as tears spilled down my cheeks. Milan pulled me close to his warm figure and encouraged me to calm down, that it was okay. His fingers rubbed my back softly and helped slow down my tear flow.

"It's not okay, Milan," I protested, pulling my head away to look at him. "I treated you like complete shit and you didn't deserve that for all that you tried to do for me." He brought his free hand to my face and brushed the tears off my face.

"It's okay, Kegan. You apologized, and I forgive you. That's all you need to say." He wasn't lying either. He looked at me with a passion I had never seen before and the words 'I forgive you' might as well have been written across his forehead. I didn't understand how he could forgive so quick; maybe he needed me as much as I needed him. Maybe he loved me for who I was, even through the rough times when I thought he didn't care anymore.

My crying was starting to come to an end as I grew more and more exhausted. I was about to crash. But I had had one more thing to ask the man watching over me.

"Milan?"

"Yeah, Kegan?"     

"What made you decide to try helping me again?" I bit my lip.

"I care about you too much to watch you continue to endure what you've been going through. It hurts me to know that you're hurting yourself and that I've done nothing about it despite your pleas to not do anything about it." I was glad to know that he did care and that this wasn't a pity rescue on his part.

"Thank you, Milan." I smiled and closed my eyes, only to jerk them open again when I felt a pair of lips pressed to mine. Sparks exploded inside of me as I kissed him back and I knew that I was more than happy to have Milan back, and this time for good.

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and held my face to his for about a minute, making up for lost time. The passion that went into that kiss was worth everything I had gone through in the past weeks because I knew that I never ever wanted to lose Milan again. Once was hard enough.

When he finally pulled free, we beamed at each other. Milan gathered my body into a heartwarming hug.

"Go to sleep now, you look exhausted," he whispered.

"Are you going to stay here?"

"I will if you want me to."

"Please, will you stay?" I asked.

"Of course," he replied. He wrapped his arms around me, kissing my forehead and the top of my head, and held me close as I drifted in and out of conciousness for a few minutes.

"Milan?" I asked, not wanting to fall asleep just yet without telling him this one thing.

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, Kegan. I'm glad you're back in my life."

"Goodnight," I finished with a smile. I took one more look at him before drifting off into the best sleep I'd had in a while.

When I look at you I see forgiveness; I see the truth. You love me for who I am, like the stars hold the moon - right there where they belong - and I know I'm not alone.