I'll Always Be Around

My mind was on him, as always. I heard his name everywhere I went. John this, John that. He was the talk of our town and there was no way to escape him. My sisters always had something to say about him. They loved him just like everyone else around here. Even my own mother talked about him. She would ask me if I'd heard about the charity work he was doing at the hospital. I knew, of course, I knew everything about him. I knew he volunteered every Thursday night, he would go to the hospital with his guitar and play and sing for the patients. He had a heart of gold. A heart that was once mine. A heart I let go.

John was everything I wanted in a person. His only fault was his inability to see what our relationship was doing to me. We were perfect and he knew it, I knew it too, but the repercussions of being perfect were too much to bare. He didn't see the looks I got, he couldn't understand why I wanted too take a break. He thought I was breaking up with him, he thought I wanted nothing to do with him but I honestly just needed a break from the drama. I tried to make him understand, I tried to make him listen and give me space for a little while. I tried to tell him I still wanted him, just not at that moment, and he was torn apart.

I couldn't take it any more. The stares were too much, the rumours got to me in the end. People spent months trying to tear us apart, most of them girls who wanted to be me. Everyone wanted to date the famous John O'Callaghan and I was the only thing in their way. I was told numerous times that I would lose him to someone else, someone better than me, and I couldn't take it. I couldn't take another girl spilling her drink on me at a party just to piss me off. I was giving in.

I knew from the look in his eyes when I told him we should take a break that I'd hurt him. John was fragile, something not many people knew. He'd had a rough past and pulled through, but he couldn't take being left. He thought I was leaving him. He still went to school and acted as happy as ever but I could see through it. Everyone thought he was fine but he was falling apart. Every day I saw him getting worse. He was thinking about it again. He was thinking about all the people that walked out of his life and he was looking at me as one of them more and more each day.

Every time his green eyes met mine in the hallways he turned away. He couldn't even look at me any more. I needed him though. I needed him in my life somehow. I needed him to hold me and listen to what I had to say. I needed him to road trip to Texas with me again and tell me he understood what I was saying. I needed him.

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I was to thin. I needed to eat more and sleep more, but I couldn't. My mind was on Peyton. Everything she did was engraved into my corneas, her blue eyes permanently in all of my thoughts. She was supposed to always be there for me, but she chose to leave. She left just like everyone else. She wanted nothing to do with me and I couldn't figure out why. What was I doing wrong to make everyone leave? It was the one question I couldn't find an answer to.

Peyton had been my best friend my entire life. She was there through everything and she had promised to stay various times. When we started dating I knew what we were getting into. The chance of her leaving was heightened but I trusted her. I had trusted her to not break my heart and stay with me as long as I needed her. I knew it was like I was using her. I had no plans to just ditch her though, I would marry her one day, I knew it. She was everything I needed as a friend and anything more.

She said she needed a break and I had blown it out of proportion. She just needed time and I knew it, but it felt like so much more than that, it felt like she didn't want me and she didn't need me. It felt like she was leaving me, but she wasn't.

I avoided her as much as I could because I felt stupid. I knew she meant very little when she said she needed a break. I shouldn't have read into it but I didn't know how not to.

My thoughts and feelings were mixed and muddled and I didn't know how I would react when I saw Peyton again. I wanted so badly to just hold her and apologize for being irrational, but I knew I would freak out and say something I didn't mean. My thoughts were taking over my words and ruining everything.

I had a shield over my heart that I had trouble keeping control over. It was a bitch to deal with. I knew exactly why it was there, it had protected me time and time again. I should have been able to control it after all this time but I hadn't quite figured out how yet and I knew I was losing Peyton because of it.

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I couldn't corner him. He was always around people who I hated, people he hated too but dealt with. If I got too close he left. I had no way of getting to him. His parents wouldn't let me in, even though they once said I was always welcome. I didn't know what he'd told them, but it hurt to know he was cutting me off.

I went for the last choice I had. I left school early and sat in the passenger seat of his old truck. He never locked the doors and he would have to talk to me eventually. John saw me sitting there before he reached his door. He paused before getting into his truck.

"What do you want?" He was trying to sound harsh but he just sounded broken.

"You knew you would have to talk to me eventually." I retorted.

John rolled his eyes and dropped his head against the steering wheel. "I was hoping it'd be a lot farther into the future." He grumbled. I smiled knowing his defences were down.

"I need you to hear me out, okay? Then I'll leave and you can ignore me again or whatever." I waited for him to look up at me but he didn't. John started his truck and drove without looking at me. I knew where he was going so I waited for us to get there before I spoke.

I followed John out of his truck and up the bleachers at the baseball park. I dropped down next to him and studied his posture. He was attacking himself internally, I could tell from his slouched shoulders and tired eyes. He was fiddling with his hands and looking anywhere but at me yet he was sitting extremely close.

"I never broke up with you John." I started and he looked out over the field. "I just can't deal with the stares and comments and all the shit I get from being with you. I just needed time." I reached over to hold his hand and he let me just as I knew he would. He was shaking and I knew what was going on. John was going to have a panic attack right there on the bleachers.

"God John, don't you dare." He shook his head and I knew he was going to cry. He was going to cry and I would too, I couldn't take him crying. I pulled him into me and he grabbed onto me for dear life.

"I'm so sorry Pey, I am." He got out between breaths. "I didn't mean it, I swear, I didn't know what to do to control it and I-" I shushed him and rubbed his back, saying I understood. I did, his mind wrecked him and he couldn't always control what he did or said.

"I know John, I know." I held him as he cried and shook and hiccuped and waited for him to calm down. I didn't know what else to do other than hold him and wait for him to be okay and stop crying. I was good at knowing when he was okay and when he wasn't and he was a disaster. I needed to hold him and be there for him and let him know I wasn't going to be leaving him. I kissed his hair and slipped down next to him and curled myself into his side. I didn't want to be without him I wanted to always be around him and keep him next to me at all times.

I was worried for his health, and suddenly everything else slipped into the back of my thoughts. It didn't matter what everyone thought of me being with him, it mattered how he was feeling.

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I cried in her arms. I'd had panic attacks around Peyton before but I'd never sobbed into her hold but I needed it. I needed her and I needed to know she would always be around. I let her baby me and I let her treat me like I was stupid and I couldn't do anything for myself.

I stopped crying and tried to pull away from her. I didn't want her to look at my face and see how much it all hurt. She already knew how upset I was but I knew I looked terrible.

Peyton grabbed my face and forced me to look into her eyes. I didn't want her pity. I didn't want anything but her company but of course I got more than that. I got her forehead against mine and her hands on either side of my face. I got her lips on mine and everything fell into the background.

I'd missed her way too much, I missed knowing that she would always be there for me no matter what was wrong. I missed all the things we did together, the fun things and the stupid things. The times we'd gotten arrested for trespassing... everything.

I laughed against her mouth and she pulled away to tell me to shut up. I pecked her lips once more and pulled her into my chest.

"I'm sorry Peyton, I'm so sorry." I pulled away from her hold to see her crying as well. "Pey, don't cry over me, I'm just stupid and I'm not worth it." She hit me in the chest and sniffled wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"I'm not crying over you, idiot, I'm crying with you because we're both stupid."

I took a moment to stare at Peyton; to really look at my best friend. "I love you." I whispered into the air.

Peyton leaned into my side and sighed . "I love you too, you ass."