Time Will Tell

It’s all so confusing. Here I am, sitting on the steps of my front porch, crying into my knees as I hold them to my chest. I’m so confused. It shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve wanted to leave since I was eight, not because I was unhappy or hated where I lived, but because I wanted to go somewhere new and become something great. I was happy. I am happy. I’m popular, but I’m not that girl – I’m the girl that’s genuinely nice because I believe strongly in ‘doing unto others as you would have them do unto you’ and I am amazing at diverting awkward situations, though lately I’ve found myself in a lot of those. I have great friends, great parents, and a great life for the most part. But I don’t want to leave… well, I mean, I do, but the part of me that doesn’t remember but feels so strongly about Noah and Grace is protesting.

And I don’t want to screw everything up. What if I choose to go to school five hours away from them, not remembering them, and then all of a sudden I remember everything and realize I made a mistake? What do I do then? But how can I stay, knowing that only a part of me, the smaller part at the moment, will be happy while the adventurous girl I ‘used to be’ is miserable? How in the world does someone make a choice like this? I know it would break my heart to leave Noah, and to leave my child, because somehow or another I managed to fall in love with a baby who isn’t mine biologically, but is in my heart. I feel like I’m split right down the middle; I’m two very different people who just happen to share the same body.

I’ve tried putting things in the perspective of the girl I’m supposed to be now, but it’s hard, because I don’t know anything about her. The way I feel now, I can’t imagine why I would have ever gotten involved with Noah in the first place – he’s amazing, and sweet, and he’s just so great to me, but he has a baby. I can’t understand why I’d let myself get attached to him, knowing that I would just get trapped here.

Maybe I don’t mind now, maybe I’ve got all I need as long as I have them. The thought has occurred to me numerous times, but it’s difficult to imagine myself as that girl.

What if I never remember? What if things with me and Noah are never the same? He’s sitting around, expecting the part of me that loves him to just resurface and for things to take up where they left off, but I don’t exactly feel that way about him. I know that half of me loves him, and half of me wishes I never met him. That’s another reason I’m so jumbled up inside, and confused. How can I love a guy I wish I’d never been with in the first place? How can I be with him, knowing that I can’t tell him that part of me resents him for tying me to the place that I’ve always been so desperate to leave?

It was easier to be with him before I went to the open house, before I realized that I have to choose, and soon. Now I don’t know how I will even be able to look at him. I’m so ashamed and disappointed in myself. He’ll be able to tell something is wrong just by looking into my eyes. He knows me that well.

I’m crying so hard now that I can’t breathe. I just hold myself tightly, wishing it were Noah, but knowing that it would be wrong to ask him to comfort me now, while I’m thinking of ending things before they can get any worse.

****************

“Hey, baby,” Noah says. I jump, not realizing he was here, and not knowing for how long. I must have fallen asleep. I look up at him sleepily, rubbing my eyes. I feel like crap. “Have you been crying?” he asks, sitting down next to me on a step and taking my face in his hands, staring into my eyes. I can see my reflection in his concern-filled eyes and not only do I feel like crap, I look like crap.

I pull away from him and rub at the eyeliner smeared across my cheek. I can’t bring myself to open my mouth, fearing what I might say, so instead I nod. He deserves so much better than me.

“Why?” he asks me gently. He wraps his arms securely around me. I lean into him and breathe in his scent; I can’t even describe it – he just smells like Noah. My muscles loosen and I feel myself relax against his broad chest. He kisses my hair and my heart leaps.

Tears fall down my cheeks and I try and wipe them away before he notices but his strong hand catches my own.

“Teag, tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what I can do to make you happy again.”

And with that, I cry again. I’m just bawling my eyes out on his shoulder. He rubs my back, trying to soothe me, but I can’t take it anymore. He’s so great, and I’m so awful. All he wants is to make me happy, and I’m willing to make him hurt just so I don’t have to anymore. The only thing that makes me feel slightly better is that I know that if I remembered him, and loved him the way I’m supposed to – the way he deserves – then the thought never would have occurred to me; I know that I’d gladly take him pain as my own, just to see him smile… or rather, I would have. I’m too selfish for that now.

“Shh…” he whispers. “Tell me what’s wrong, honey. Please.”

“I-I just w-want to re-remember you,” I hiccup.

He pushes me away from him and softly wipes away my tears. “I want that, too,” he says gently, like he’s talking to someone who’s so fragile a single word could shatter her. “We’ll be alright, though, it that doesn’t happen.”

“N-no we w-wouldn’t,” I stumble, my cheeks burning.

He looks down at me confused and I turn away from him, afraid he’ll see what a horrible person I am. He’s so important to me.

“Sweetheart, tell me what’s going on,” he says, panic layering his smooth, amazing voice.

“I’m so awful,” I mumble pathetically, my tears slowing. He starts shaking his head so I rush on, scared I’ll let him tell me I’m not, that I’ll let him make me believe it before he even knows the truth. “Part of me cares so much about you,” I explain. “Part of me loves you more than anything in the world. I just, I don’t understand anything anymore. I want to leave. I want to go to a school far away from here and experience new things and meet new people, but I’m scared. I was never scared before. I’m scared it’s a mistake. I hate myself for it, but I don’t remember enough about you to stay, but I think that if I could, if I could just remember you it wouldn’t even be a problem. It’s like I know how I feel about you, and I know what I would do if I remembered you, but the part that just randomly feels for you and Grace is so small. So much smaller than the girl I used to be, the only girl I remember how to be.

“I don’t know what to do, because I don’t want to leave you. I feel like I’m never going to remember and I can’t stay knowing that I’ll be doing it to make you happy when really I’m just angry that I had to stay in the first place. You deserve so much better than some girl who’s caught between who she used to be and the things she used to want and the girl you know, who only wants you, because she’s too much of the girl she used to be for her love for you take make a difference.”

There’s a silence that lingers between us and I realize what I’ve just said. ‘My love for you doesn’t make a difference’ is what I’m sure he heard. I didn’t mean it that way exactly, though. I feel like my heart is breaking in two.

“So you’re leaving?” he finally asks. All I hear is pain. Oh, God, I’m hurting him.

“I don’t know!” I shout, exasperated. “I don’t know what to do! I don’t want to leave you, but I do want to leave. I know you couldn’t possibly understand how I feel right now, and it’s so damn aggravating, but I don’t exactly love you… I just know that I’m supposed to. And I want to, I want to love you so much it hurts.”

He nods, but I can tell he doesn’t understand. Hell, I don’t even understand.

“But I do love you, and I don’t want you to leave, but I need you to be happy, so if you leave, you leave. We can work things out the best we can,” he says. He nods again absently. He kisses my cheek and stands up. “I have to go.”

He leaves then, and I watch after him, not sure what just happened between us – not sure if we’re still together.