'Cause Love Is A Selfish Thing

I managed to not see Alex a single time during the rest of the party. I pushed our heated conversation to the very back of my mind, forced myself to forget all about how he had planned to ask me to marry him. With all of those things buried deep in a dark recess of my brain, I found myself having a good time. After laughing for what felt like days with my friends at Zack and Marshall faking guitar solos and making the sounds themselves, we sat around the dining room and had both one big conversation and several small ones. It was like our own little party within the one the Gaskarths were holding. Neither Isobel nor Peter seemed to mind that we had decided not to interact with all of their friends and -in some of the boys' cases- our own parents. They also didn't appear to care that their son and his date kept from coming anywhere near the rest of us. I felt bad about making them have to see that, to witness the tension between him and I. But they didn't show any aversion to me, making me feel slightly better about how badly things had turned out. For the night, I wouldn't be brought down by the wrong decision I had made or the knowledge that I would have made a bad one even if the first one had been passed up. It was easy to only focus on my friends and make it home without any terrible thoughts in my mind.

Sleeping was easy that night. There was no tossing, no turning. Waking up the next day though was a bit tougher. Things came rushing back and did everything they could to remind me that it all hadn't been a terrible dream. Dread made my stomach drop and I curled into a ball under the blankets so that I could force myself to forget again. Maybe with the news that he still loved me, we could have gotten back together. We could have done everything I had envisioned the first night I was at Hadley's house, have a happy reunion and forget all about my idiotic choices. But that had been the same night I had been made aware of my looming fear of commitment. Because I knew he still loved me and that he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, it made me want to back away more than I ever had. I hated myself for it, but I didn't know how to make it so that I was no longer terrified of the thought of settling.

It took a fair few minutes, but I was able to bury everything enough that I could climb out of bed to move on with the day. The house was empty when I made my way downstairs like it was most weekdays in the morning. I wasn't sure where everyone was this morning, but it was probably best to be alone for a while. I poured myself a cup of coffee the second I walked into the kitchen and then set to looking for something to make for breakfast. I was trying to think of a million things at once, attempting to keep my mind from pulling up the image of that small box setting on his old bed. I wanted to be able to have a new job and a place of my own that topped the old one before I had mooched too much off of my friends. Planning that all out was quite enough to forget the thought of the ring, but was all too soon interrupted by my phone ringing for what felt like the thousandth time in the past month.

I slipped back into the living room to reach the chair where I had thrown my purse the night before. My phone was going off from one of the inner pockets, lighting up the entire bag on the inside. Reaching into the contents, I extracted it and glimpsed at the screen to find that it was Oliver. I had completely forgotten he had existed because of last night's events, let alone that I was supposed to meet him for lunch. "Hey there," I greeted after pressing my phone to my ear. Was it wrong to have been so put off by Alex being with Lisa last night when I had found comfort in this man when I had just met him? I found justification in it only because I had no plans as of right now to be anything but friends with Oliver.

"Hey, beautiful," he responded, sounding rather happy that I had answered. I still found it wholly odd that he was always cheery when we spoke and that he called me things like beautiful. In the few times that we had hung out, he had been full of compliments. "I was thinking I could pick you up in about twenty minutes and we could pick a place to eat together. That work?" he questioned, once again not wasting any time in moving right along.

I spun around a few times until I found the cuckoo clock hanging on the wall behind me to see that it was nearly noon. I had spent entirely too much time making believe last night hadn't happened. "Um, give me a half hour?" I told him, forming it into my own question. If he was already en route, it would be a problem for him if I took any longer. It would also be easier for me to get ready and then over to my old apartment so he could pick me up from there if I was awarded more time. There was no way I was going to suddenly let him know that I was staying with Hadley and Marshall. "I just woke up, so it's going to take me a little while to get ready," I lied. At least there was some truth in it in saying that I had just got up.

He didn't have any aversion to ten extra minutes, and said that he would be at my apartment in exactly thirty minutes. Forgetting all about my coffee still on the kitchen counter, I sprinted back down the hall and then up the stairs. I hurriedly threw my hair into a fishtail braid before tearing through my clothes to find something to wear. I was most often a jeans-and-t-shirt person -or leggings when I was feeling extra lazy- but decided that today shouldn't be a day for dressing simply. I pulled on a strapless bodysuit I had disregarded several times since I'd gotten it, covering the bottom with faded jeans that had a hole in the knee from too much wear and threw on an open knit sweater. I snatched up my makeup bag from the nightstand and skipped back down the stairs, grabbing my purse before heading out the door.

As I drove, I thought about how ridiculous it was to have to hurry like I was. It was logical though to keep a few secrets from him while I was still getting to know him. I was starting to take on Hadley's point of view when it came to people I didn't know well. With these thoughts on my mind, it felt like no time at all to get to the apartment building I despised so much. I pulled into the tiny parking lot next to it and took my makeup bag from the passenger seat. I was able to be finished by the time I saw Oliver pull up in front of the building and take his phone out as he sat behind the wheel. With a sigh, I pushed myself out of the rental car to make my way over to him. I waved at him as I approached the car, and he looked slightly surprised that I had shown up without him even having to call to tell me he was here.

"That was fast," he pointed out as I slipped into his passenger seat. He put the car into drive and set off down the road before we even agreed on a restaurant.

I nodded. "Yeah… I was getting my mail out in the lobby. I saw you pull up," I fibbed again swiftly, but put a smile on my face to make him think I was completely truthful. I wasn't great at lying in person. I just hopped he wouldn't recognize this so easily already. "How about Starbucks?" I suggested once he had given a nod in understanding. "We can go from there. I haven't had my caffeine fix yet today though." I thought I sounded fairly convincing now that I wasn't spurting words that put my dishonesty on display.

Oliver chuckled lightly and nodded again. "So I noticed that you are not, in fact, hungover," he said after he had set us in the right direction. He ran a hand through his dark blonde hair, throwing me a sideways smirk at reminding me of what I had told him last night when he'd called.

I gave a small laugh. "Thankfully, not at all. Turns out it was easier to forget about some things while laughing with people than it was to get completely wasted," I admitted to him, twirling a finger into the hair at the end of my braid. "My friends tend to be the kind of people that do ridiculous things that make me smile like no one else can make me," I told him with a shrug. It was the truth. They were certainly the most original people I had met, and they were the best.

"So the problem itself didn't just disappear then?" he asked. He had waited until we had reached our destination to speak again, and was obviously hinting that he wanted to know why I had wanted to get drunk in the first place. He held the door open for me, refraining from prying. It was obvious though that he was more than curious.

I wanted to put it off, or just pray that he would drop it altogether. I hadn't told anyone about what Alex and I had talked about last night, not even Hadley in a low aside during the party. I was the only one that knew the reason behind the time Alex hadn't been talking to me -assuming he hadn't told his best friends- and that we had still not hashed things out to a point where we would be comfortable again. Was it really going to be appropriate to tell the man standing next to me? Not only had I not spoken about the relationship with him, he was surely passed juvenile problems like this. He wasn't much older, but it could be a large leap when it came to dating. I had begun absentmindedly biting the nail of my index finger while we waited in line and forced myself to stop once I made a decision. "I'm going through somewhat of a bad breakup," I blew out speedily.

Oliver's eyes grew wide for a moment, revealing his surprise. He took my hand and dragged me from the line over to a table. "It's not even right for me to be hanging out with you then, is it?" he guessed as we sat down. He was looking particularly worried about overstepping boundaries when I might not even be free.

Once again, I found myself more involved with someone than I had thought. But I shook it off with the small shake of my head in reply to his apprehension. Shortly, I explained leaving Alex, the invite to the Christmas party, and the reveal of the proposal. I wasn't sure how he would take that, mostly because I wasn't even positive how I was taking it yet. I felt like I just needed a second opinion, even if he wasn't the person to get it from. "It's just… scary. That's the only way I can really describe it, you know? Ugh, listen to me. You don't need to burdened with all of this," I finally realized, sitting back in my seat and hoping to move on. I was about to ask how he had been doing, but he had already begun speaking.

"That sounds intense. You're only twenty-two. What's the rush with him wanting to get engaged?" he wondered, leaning forward a bit more. There was something in his hazel eyes that I couldn't put my finger on, something I wasn't sure I would want to find out.

It was hard to explain exactly how well Alex and I seemed to fit at times. I couldn't deny that maybe it was logical for us to get engaged because of both our chemistry and history. There was just so much there, and it made for an intense situation like was being pointed out and an early vow to be together for as long as we were alive. Simplifying it the best I could, I explained, "We were together for a while when we were teenagers. There's always been something between us." Even when I was dating his best friend. Even after I had left them all. Back then, I wouldn't have been able to predict this admission without getting angry. Now it was simply fact. It wasn't something I wanted to have anxiety over for too much longer.

"Clarke!" a very familiar voice called from the other side of the store. The body that belonged to that voice was not going to make me any less anxious while I was here with Oliver. I turned my head slowly to see Rian making his way toward us with his usual smile on his face. "What are you doing here?" he asked once he was only a few feet away. When he spotted that I had company, his face visibly fell.

"Hey, Rian," I said cheerily instead of answering him. "Ri, this is my friend Oliver. Oliver, this is one of my best friends in the world, Rian," I introduced the two of them. Acting like there was nothing going on and getting on Rian's good side seemed like a good idea since he was obviously disappointed finding that I was out with a guy that wasn't Alex. I kept the smile on my face until Rian finally held his hand out.

Oliver took it and they shook hands politely, both of them looking gruff but friendly like men always seemed to do. "Nice to meet you," Rian said, to which Oliver nodded in agreement. Rian clearly wanted to say more, probably to ask who the hell Oliver actually was or to ask me why I was out with some random man. But he wasn't the type of person to burst out with questions that made him look like he was rude. "Um, Zack is just at the gym down the street. He's supposed to meet us here, if you want to see him," he informed me, looking behind him briefly to do a sweep for the person he was here with.

I completely disregarded what he had said about Zack, instead thinking of who he could be here with. He had mentioned Cassadee coming to stay, but I knew she wouldn't be coming until after Christmas. I could guess that it wouldn't be Jack. And if Zack was down the street, then there was only one other person I knew that it would most likely be. "Where- He's not here, is he?" I inquired, my voice low and my expression wary. I knew that he would be able to tell that I wasn't talking about Zack because I made it obvious and he knew me so well anyway. Just by the look on his face, I knew that he was going to have to let me down. He opened his mouth, prepared to say that Alex was somewhere, unseen at the moment, but would probably be appearing at any second.

As if on cue, the boy I was being forced to face too many times in the last twenty-four hours came up behind Rian with a questioning expression on his face as to why his friend was just standing at a table. Alex took the silence as a chance to look around rather than vocally ask, and his eyes landed on me almost instantly. From the way they narrowed, I knew he had realized that I wasn't alone out of the corner of his eye. The glare wasn't pointed at Oliver though. It was directed straight at me and I shrank under it like I did any other time he had given me a look like that. "Clarke," he said sharply, clearly perturbed by this meeting. Was it because of what had happened last night or because I wasn't by myself? With my luck, chances were that it was most definitely both. A silence fell upon the four of us that I was hoping would simply kill us off. If it had, I wouldn't have to hear and comply to the next words out of Alex's mouth. "Can we go somewhere and talk real quick?" he asked, loosing the glower and acquiring a bit of pleading in his eyes.

There was still so much that needed to be discussed between the two of us, but I really didn't want to have to do it here. Not while he was mad at me for both saying that I probably would have rejected his proposal and because it looked as if I was on a date. I figured there was no way around it though without getting into a huge public fight, so I nodded reluctantly and excused myself from the table. I could feel Oliver's perplexed eyes on me as I stood and followed Alex out of the shop. There was so much that was going to have to be explained if either one of us decided we still wanted to see each other. The winter air was cold as we stepped outside, and the wind whipped at my face to give it a slight sting. I was incessantly scolding myself for only wearing the sweater and not bringing a coat along. I was scolding myself for a lot of things these days. Following Alex away from the store and into what appeared to be an empty laundromat, I wrapped my arms tight around myself.

"Who the hell is that?" he hissed, rounding on me the moment the door had shut behind me with a sound from the bell overhead. He didn't look angry, but hurt beyond any words I could use to describe it. This was what he would say was me betraying him. "Is he why you think you would have said no? If you hadn't been on tour with us, I would be tempted to ask if you were seeing him before our 'problems' started," he seethed, using air quotes as he spit the word problems. All of the other words were being forced to sound furious instead of worried.

"He's no one that concerns you!" I exclaimed, feeling the need to get my voice above his. I didn't want to yell though and it was hard to fight the urge. "If you're insinuating that maybe I was cheating on you, that's complete bullshit. You know I would never do that. He's most certainly not the reason for my no. That-" I almost blurted out my current largest fear. That was something that didn't need to be said with no warning at all. "That has nothing to do with other people," I corrected.

Of course he would ask this. I would probably ask him the same thing of Lisa if given the chance. "I've only just met him two weeks ago, Alex. I don't even think we're dating. Though he might say otherwise," I added in a mutter, thinking that it was inevitable with me. He was no longer looking at me, staring down at his shoes with his knuckle between his teeth. There was nothing for me to do but think, run through so many things that I had thought before or that had happened in the last year. Standing there, I came to a conclusion that had always been there but now had a few branches to make it somewhat more complex. "I will always love you. I've said it time and time again. You'll just always be apart of me. But…" I was going to have to say it aloud. I took a deep breath and set off again. "I'm afraid though that I haven't lived enough. I'm afraid that maybe I'm settling because you're the best I've ever known. I don't want us to settle," I confessed, backing away until my back was pressed to the front window.

Alex looked completely shocked at everything that had come from my mouth. Emotions were warring in him -elation at knowing I wouldn't stop loving him and rage along with confusion at the reason I wasn't with him. It was hard to see which one won because he had stepped toward me so quickly that I could barely see his face. "There is nothing about us that is an element of settling," he claimed with an air that begged me to believe it. His hands reached out to me and he cupped them at the back of my neck. It was still difficult to see his face with my suddenly blurred vision, and I had no time to right it before his lips were on mine. My reaction was instantaneous. There would rarely be a moment that I wouldn't kiss him back without questioning it. As our lips moved together, I could tell he was attempting to persuade me. Of what, I wasn't positive. It was over too soon though, and he pulled away an inch or so to look me in the eye. My perception wasn't so obscured anymore and I could read the caution in those chocolate irises. "I can't keep fighting for this when I'm the only one that seems to be in the battle at times. But if you want to live -date other guys and move to China, if you want, then live. I can't promise that I'll be waiting when it's been enough. But I love you. Remember that," he pleaded slightly, and then pushed from me to walk away along the line of dryers.

A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with today's weather. Right now, I didn't know how to take his words and I really didn't want to take the time to work myself through them. I hurried to get out the door before he turned around again and made my way back down the sidewalk to Starbucks. Rian and Oliver were both where we had left them, looking more awkward than I was sure they ever had. I grabbed my purse from my vacated chair as soon as I reached them, making myself look apologetic toward Oliver. "I'm not feeling that well. I'm sorry, but I think I should go home. I'll call you later?" I suggested but didn't wait for him to say anything. I turned to Rian. "Do you think you can give me a ride home?" He nodded, only looking wondering briefly. He began leading the way out, obviously ready to get out of here. As I walked behind him, I mouthed another I'm sorry to Oliver over my shoulder. I had no tolerance for men interested in me right now though, and I followed Rian as fast as I could.