The Day You Fell Apart

I probably looked completely anti social and pathetic with my heels in my hand and my bare feet walking along rocks that faced a beautiful mountain view. The wedding was taking place at a hotel, but at the far end of it there was a huge grass field that was overtaken by the reception tent and altar. Along the side of the grass field were rocks, and then a cliff which overlooked many mountains. If I wasn’t so miserable, I would have been able to ‘appreciate mother nature’ or something. But instead, I just walked absentmindedly along the rocks, not really caring that if I were to lose my balance, I’d probably fall to my death.

I finally stopped and sat down on one of the rocks and sighed. I think it’s the worst feeling in the world knowing that a person that you care for so much doesn’t care about you enough to tell you things about themselves. Jonah obviously doesn’t care enough about me to tell me what has been going in with his family or why he seemed to be pretty hostile towards his mother and his now step-dad. He still hasn’t really gave me a solid reason as to why he even moved. He claimed that he just needed something ‘new’ but he never went any further than that. It just bugged me so much. He knew all about Evan… he knew all about my past, but I knew nothing about his. It just made me feel so empty and hollow. It made me feel like this whole thing was pointless.

“You okay?”

I looked up and saw Heidi approaching me slowly. Her heels were still on her feet, but once she realized that they kept getting stuck in the grass every time she walked, she took them off and sat down by me.

“I’m fine, I guess,” I replied while looking straight forward. Heidi let out a deep and long sigh before picking up some grass and playing with it with her fingers.

“Jonah has never been the one to tell anyone things about himself,” Heidi muttered. “So don’t feel offended.”

“How can I not feel offended?” I responded. “I’m his girlfriend and not until this day did I even know his mom’s boyfriend’s name.”

“I know,” Heidi replied. She paused for a second and took a deep breath. “Alright, Jonah and I have lived here mostly all of our lives. Our old house is only a couple miles away. When our parents were together, Jonah was always a nice kid and always had a million friends. I swear, they were always over at our house. But when our parents started fighting a lot, Jonah became more unreceptive and angry. He was never home, and was usually out at parties. When we found out that our parents were divorcing, and the main reason behind it was because my mother was having an affair, it seemed like we completely lost him. He blamed my mother for everything. She was the reason our dad was moving out of state. She was the reason that our once close family was falling apart. Jonah kind of just stopped talking to her. He used to bring a lot of girls over, because apparently he was quite the catch or whatever, but then all of a sudden, he stopped even dealing with girls. I think it had to do with my mom. He couldn’t really trust anyone anymore. She had lied to us, and I don’t think he was able to take it. He would barely talk to us anymore, and he’d come home late every night, piss drunk. It was like whenever he was angry, he’d go get drunk with his friends, or even by himself.”

“He just became such an angry person, and I started to get annoyed with his stupid ‘bad boy’ thing he had going on. He just didn’t give a fuck about anything. He began to get in trouble all of the time. Apparently he vandalized some private property with his friends, and was taken home by the cops one night. He used to have amazing grades, but all of a sudden they began slipping. So, one day I confronted him about it and told him that he was being immature and instead of dealing with things like anyone else his age would, he was basically being a pussy about it all. He didn’t listen to me, and I felt that that was the last straw. I moved out of my mom's and moved in with my dad, where I got a job at a clothing boutique that one of my dad’s friend’s own. I moved colleges. Everything. I couldn’t really take it anymore. I’d talk to my mom every once in a while, and when I asked her about Jonah, she’d just say that he was still never home, but had started to get his grades back up and was hoping to graduate early. She told me that he and Robert had begun fighting even more, and that Robert would say that Jonah was an ass hole to him only because he was the man my mom cheated on my dad with. She’d complain that Jonah was being ‘unreasonable’ and wasn’t ‘trying to get to know Robert for the man he was’. I got pretty angry at this, I mean, who would blame their child of being unreasonable for disliking the man that split up its family, you know? So my mom and I began to argue, and whenever I’d come to visit, Robert would be an ass hole to me too. More stress. More drama. I hated it. So I just stopped visiting. Jonah called me one night and told me that he had graduated early and that he wanted to move in with my dad and I. We both agreed and here we are.”

Heidi took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her brown hair. She rolled her lip ring with her tongue and waited for me to speak.

“Why… why couldn’t he tell me this?” I whispered. I never thought that Jonah had so many issues when he was living here. I mean, I knew there was something. But I didn’t know that he had become such an antagonistic person. But still, even after hearing all of this, I didn’t understand why he couldn’t have just told me about what happened. If he had told me, I would have stayed with him and listened. I wouldn’t have gotten angry at him for getting in trouble, nor would I have gotten angry with him for leaving his mom. I would have understood. I would have been there for him.

Knowing all of this about him made me even angrier. Why couldn’t he have just told me?

“I honestly don’t know. He just doesn’t like people knowing that many things about him. Like I said, he has bad trust issues,” Heidi replied while looking down at the ground. I sighed and nodded and looked over at Heidi who had begun ripping the grass in her hands even more furiously and angrily. Something was upsetting her.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Heidi looked up at me; it was obvious that she was flustered about something.

“Just go talk to him okay?” She replied. “I’m just stressed that’s all. He really needs you right now. Just go talk to him.”

I nodded in return while Heidi stood up, and sauntered away and back to the reception tent. I stood up myself and smoothed out my dress before walking back myself. I looked inside of it to see people dancing to ‘Shout!’ and screaming. I rolled my eyes at them, and then looked around some more, but didn’t see Jonah anywhere. I finally turned around and saw someone with a familiar mop of dark brown hair walking down the path towards the hotel. I ran down towards Jonah and once I was a few feet behind him, slowed down. I walked behind him for a few seconds before speeding up and placing my hand in his own. He jumped a little slightly and turned around to face me.

“Hi,” I whispered. Jonah looked down at the ground, and I took his other hand in my own and raised both of them so they were resting on both of my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” He muttered.

“Don’t be,” I replied. “Heidi told me about everything that happened and-“

“What?” He interrupted while taking his hands off of my shoulders. “What the hell did she tell you?”

“Just about your parents and why you moved….” I replied skeptically and was a little taken back by his response. “Why? Is there more that she should have told me?”

“No, sorry. I’m just- ugh, sorry,” He stammered and then took my hands again.

“Just,” I began and squeezed his hands as if they were the only thing I could hold on to at the moment. “Stop apologizing. Please stop telling me that you’re sorry. Just trust me. I’m here for you and only you. Please just need me as much as I need you, Jonah.” I begged. I wanted him to care for me as much as I did him. Jonah had unintentionally helped me through so much. He was the only one who was brave enough to drive me to Evan’s grave. He was the only one who dared to challenge me when I was being a bitch. He was the only one who didn’t give up on me. Dee would try to make me go back to how I was, but she’d eventually give up and would stop attempting. Jonah didn’t. I liked who I was becoming, and the only reason I know why I’m becoming this way, is because of him. I need him. And I want him to feel the same way about me. I need him to feel the same way.

“I love you,” Jonah said and pulled me into a hug. “I do. And no matter what happens, and no matter what you hear about me, I want you to know that that is the truth. That there is no one I’d rather be with right now than you. Just know that.”

He pulled away and then lowered his head to place his lips on my own, it seemed to be almost urgent, like he needed to kiss me at that moment or else I'd walk away any second, which was pretty impossible. I immediately wrapped my arms around him to pull him closer to me while parting my mouth to deepen this kiss. His hand moved down to my lower back which made me shiver. He pulled away from me and looked into my eyes.

“When we get back, spend the night at my house, please?” He asked. I just smiled and nodded before standing on my tippy toes to kiss him again.