We All Fall Down

“Jason, put me down!” I squealed as he picked me up after we raced to the other side of the park. I may have cheated by crossing through the grass, but he was beating me by so much! We were currently in the park that was dangerously close to my aunts old home. I shouldn’t have come here, but it was my favorite place to run. I just knew Jason would love it here too.

It’s been five years since I left them, and two years since I’ve been back in Baltimore. All Time Low just released their new album Nothing Personal. I still haven’t listened to any of it, mainly because i was afraid to know what was on it. To be honest, Jason would be upset with me if he found out I still keep up with them.

“You should have thought about that before you cheated! I could have beaten you fair and square if you just learned to take defeat!” he yelled while spinning us around. Eventually he put me down in front of him and gave me a kiss on the cheek. We both laughed it off and started heading back to the car with his arm wrapped around my shoulder. “Did you want to go get something to eat, babe?” he asked pulling away.

I looked up at him sweetly and nodded. After running I could go for a good meal. Once we were at the car we climbed inside and drove off. I had no idea where we were heading too, but Jason seemed to learn the area over here as well as in the city pretty quickly. When we first moved down here, he was still wary about everything, but the move was so easy and eventually Maryland grew on him.

“I found this place a few weeks ago while you were at work. I figured i would take you here, see how you would like it.” He said as he pulled into the parking lot. Once when I saw where we were, I began to panic a little inside.

“I, um, I actually used to, um, used to come here a lot… when I first, um, moved here.” I was fumbling over my words. It is very hard to explain to Jason about the places i would go to with the boys five years ago. This place held a lot of meaning to me. It was here, Alex had told me he was starting to fall for me. Where we confessed to each other that we liked one another and wanted to see where things would go. Except, I wasn’t going to tell all of this to Jason. Instead, I told him a different story. “The first time i came here was for my friend Kara’s birthday. She was dating Rian then, and this ended up being our place to hang out from time to time. Milkshake Heaven almost every other Friday.” I laughed awkwardly.

He nodded, and I could sense that he was upset, but he was trying. I knew he was. “Well that’s cool, maybe now it can be our place? We can come here every Sunday after our run.”

I laughed in agreement, “Look at how healthy we are. Get an awesome two mile run in and then have milkshakes! I love the way you think, Mr. Matthews.” He rolled his eyes at the use of his last name and held the door open for me. As we made our way to the register, I already knew what I wanted and waited as he decided. After we paid, Jason grabbed our table number and we sat down right next to the window by the door.

As we waited, we discussed things about what needs to be cleaned up at the apartment, as well as what groceries we needed to pick up on the way home. I also mentioned that we would need to go to dinner with my aunt and her husband once they arrived home from Spain the following week.

“Hello,” one of the servers greeted us politely while holding our milkshakes. “I have one Extra Chocolate Minty Mountain Highway and a Very Berry White Chocolate Moon.

We both took our drinks and thanked her, as well as giving her a tip. I immediately indulged myself into my mint chocolate shake, while Jason had only taken a sip and then watch me drink almost half my milkshake. “You know you are probably going to have a stomach ache after sucking that down, right?” he stated to me.

I nodded, “You sir, are probably right about that. But i haven’t had this drink since high school and I used to drink this like I do with my Tequila on Friday nights.”

He scoffed, “You can’t even managed after three shots of tequila.”

“Hey now, that is not the point. Let me just deal with the consequences later and enjoy the moment I have left of this delicious goodness.” I defended myself as i took the last few sips of my shake. Jason was only part of the way through his by the time I finished. He laughed at me as i slipped a satisfied sound and continued to drink his.

We were having such a great time here that I almost forgot what this place first meant to me. Keyword: almost. I could hear his familiar voice ordering at the counter. Thankfully I was out of visual shot for him since my back was towards the counter. The panic in my face seemed to be evident since Jason stopped smiling and drinking his milkshake to look at me with concern, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I whispered, “could we actually start heading home” I stated calmly, moving my wide eyes towards the front counter where Jack was paying for his drink. He hadn’t turned around, but as he grabbed his table number, I quickly turned around and covered part of my face with my hand. Today is the day where I thank myself for growing out my natural blonde hair and getting rid of the black hair dye. If I ever ran into any of them, it would be my face that they would remember. I grew a few inches taller, my breasts were fuller, my hair shorter and lighter, and i have more muscle than I do bone (thank you, Jason). The boys would probably need a double take to remember me properly.

“Of course we can!” Jason said almost immediately, except he agreed too quickly and stood up to collide right in to who I was hoping to avoid. “Oh shoot! I’m so sorry, man. I didn’t see you there!”

Jack laughed, “It’s alright, don’t worry about it.”

As he walked away to go find a seat, I was grateful he hadn’t looked at me. The anxious feeling I had finally went away. “Lucy, do you still want to go?” Jason asked.

I nodded, “Yeah, I definitely need to run off that milkshake. You were right. It was a bad idea to drink this after our workout.” We both started to walk out the door and stood outside for a moment to stretch out our legs. When I looked back into the shop, I noticed the set of eyes looking at us. Instead of looking right back, I hid my face by kissing Jason quickly and saying, “Race you back to the car.”

As I took off running, I could hear Jason laughing behind me. He kept a steady pace with me before he took off in a sprint to the car claiming his victory. The rest of the day went by smoothly, the run in with Jack completely slipped my mind. I even thought it had slipped my lovely boyfriends mind as well until we were heading to bed for the night.

While I was sitting up in bed reading one of the many reviews on Jason’s art showings, he walked into the room from leaving the bathroom after brushing his teeth. He stood between the doorway and looked at me in thought. I put my tablet down and looked back at him expectantly.

He sighed, “Did you know that they were in town?”

“Of course not, Jason. I told you, I made my amends back in Chicago years ago. I didn’t know they were in town.”

“Okay, well I googled them earlier when you were showering and they just got back from touring Europe, and I thought I should let you know that there was a video of your ex and some girl.”

I rolled my eyes, he was testing me for some reason. It hurt hearing it, but I wasn’t going to show him that. “That’s great to know, are you going to come to bed now?” He pushed off the door frame and made his way to his side of the bed and got comfortable. Nothing else was said but I could tell he was still upset about this. We didn’t even run in to Alex, but instead we ran into Jack. If this is the reaction from someone who wasn’t romantically linked to me, I’m not sure I want to find out how he would be if it was the opposite.

Knowing that I couldn’t let Jason fall asleep like this, I put my tablet away and got made myself comfortable on his chest. As he wrapped his arms around me, I looked up at him and kissed his chin. When he looked back down he gave me a gentle kiss on my forehead.

“You know I want nothing more than to be with you, Lucy.” He said to me.

“And you have me.” iI reminded him, “Listen, Alex hasn’t been in my life since High School. All of them haven’t been in my life since. I was a terrible friend when I left. To be honest, I left Jack in the worst position ever, worse than Alex. Jack was the one that drove me to the airport, and knew exactly where I was up until the moment I moved to Chicago and met you.”

“Why was he in the worst position?” he asked.

“Because he had to lie to all of his friends and pretend not to know where I was or how and why I left. For almost a year, we stayed in contact, but it kept getting harder to keep it a secret especially since they all started touring. I felt like Ii was a negative force in the way of their success. Leaving completely just felt like the best idea at the time.”

He nodded, “I’m sorry you had to leave your life behind, but just know I’m glad you did all at the same time because then I would have never met you. Now you’re the most important person in my life.”

I smiled and laid down closer to Jason as he reached over and turned out the light. He wrapped his arms around me and we wished each other a goodnight. I fell asleep contently next to him, but in the back of my head all i wanted to do was find Alex.