Best You Never Had
Dec. 23rd, 2009 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parallax23Best You Never Had
Regret.
She could see it flash in his eyes as he gazed at her. How long had it been since they had last seen each other? It was the day of his nineteenth birthday. At that moment, she was twenty-three years old which made him twenty-four. So that meant they hadn’t seen each other in five years…
Five years? Had it really been that long? Time had started slipping away so quickly since she turned twenty and woke up feeling like the melodrama didn’t matter anymore. She was tired of him and his memory. Still her mind strayed to him in her quieter moments, as if it had all taken place only five weeks ago.
It had been during a last minute Christmas shopping run that she had bumped into him in the men’s department at Macy’s among the throng of holiday shoppers that swarmed 34th Street. She hadn’t thought about him in weeks, a new record she had been hoping to keep up until the New Year and hopefully forever. At first she thought her imagination was getting the best of her, but his eyes connected with hers out of all the shoppers crushed together in a grabbing frenzy. It was like he couldn’t believe his eyes either.
The years had offered subtle changes to them both. She had become more slender and feminine in her demeanor, despite her tomboyish nature when she knew him. He had added bulky masculine muscle to his once lean frame and his face was a bit rougher than the boyhood smoothness she remembered. He was a little less beautiful in her eyes since he broke her heart, but he still made her feel like she couldn’t tell her head from her feet when she was in the same vicinity as him. A twinge of hatred for him pinched at her and she cast her eyes onto a rack beside her, moving as if the coats fascinated her.
She hated Macy’s because the store felt thirty degrees hotter than it was outside, and when one dressed in clothes to suit the outdoor twenty-degree weather that made being indoors terribly uncomfortable. Stifling. She hated tourists, oversized department stores, weird salespeople in suits shoving perfume samples at her and pestering her to buy it, and being unable to find what she was looking for in the melee. Even as a born and bred New Yorker, she preferred quiet reclusive spots in the fray. Why had she come into this god forsaken store full of tourists? The one store in all of Manhattan that he just had to be in?
Another stolen glance in his direction revealed that he was still looking at her. He always did think too much before acting. Subtlety had never been one of his fortes. Some things never changed. But she had. She wasn’t the naïve little girl he had left behind. He had broken her and she had to pick up the pieces with her own strength. She had grown up and learned that she deserved better than what he had to offer.
What if he did come over and want to talk? No, she would hold her ground and not acknowledge him. She would act like she forgot him, like she hadn’t cried when he told her that that he was into someone else when they met or how the sound of his name still unnerved her. He didn’t deserve anything from her. He was the one who decided to cut ties with her. As arrogant as it was, she knew he would live to regret it someday. She felt a bit smug to see that she had been correct… Just like she had known from the moment she met him that he would break her heart.
She felt herself being pulled further and further in the opposite direction from him by the customers genuinely interested in the wool coats on her rack. She moved toward another before being pushed back by more shoppers looking to take advantage of the low sale prices.
Regret. Did she regret confessing her feelings for him? For a long time she had. It hadn’t even been her idea to reveal her feelings. She was never the kind of girl who told guys how she felt about them except if she couldn’t stand them. It was her best friend’s idea to help her get over him. Her best friend swore that the best way to get over her crush on him would be taking the leap and telling him the truth, so she wouldn’t wonder what could have been. Looking back, she would have probably gotten over him without telling him that she liked him. The truth had just exploded into a mess. Maybe if it hadn’t happened, they would have said hi to each other and exchanged pleasantries about what they had been up to before going on with the rest of their lives.
The truth hadn’t set her free. It had sent her on a spiral. She could live with him not liking her, she could. It was the fact that he had posted a new Facebook profile picture featuring another girl only an hour after she confessed that she had liked him. All his other pictures featured only himself or all male friends. Was this the girl he told her about that he liked more than her? That cute girl who had such a squeaky voice that she had to bite her lip not to laugh when the girl opened her mouth to speak? Why did he have to take things that far? Hadn’t she reiterated that she didn’t have any hard feelings before he had gone out of his way to spite her? She had made peace with the idea that he didn’t care for her until she made that discovery in the morning when she checked her Facebook homepage. Then she hated him and wanted to punch him in the face.
Her eyes scoured the crowd again for any signs of him. They had met when she couldn’t take her eyes off of him at a very crowded party scene, and she still had a knack for seeing him wherever he was. He was walking towards the exit.
Coward. He always took the easy way out.
Maybe she would have had more regret if she had actually dated him. The thought offered her some solace as the song “Last Christmas” by Wham echoed through the store. It was her favorite Christmas song, in spite of her mother and brother’s instance that they sing it whenever it came on the radio. It was also oddly appropriate for the moment.
She no longer held regrets about telling him. It showed her who he really was. He showed her that she deserved better than she thought. Better than him. Still a small piece of her would always be with him, a small piece of her would continue to wonder what they could have had. Her memories of him were her favorite ones, even though they would be tinged with tragedy.
He would be the one to live with the regret of hurting her, throwing everything away because he didn’t want a relationship that wouldn’t be easy.
“Hey, did you find those gloves for your brother?” her boyfriend asked when he found her among the frenzied buyers. His hair was a matted mess when he took off his hat and ran his hand through it.
A smile crossed his face as she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
“You’re late,” she laughed. His smile was infectious and she wanted to kiss him right there, but they both hated public displays of affection. Away from prying eyes, that was a different story altogether and she would just have to wait until then.
“Did I miss anything? Hit any obnoxious tourists that asked you to play Zagat tour guide again?” he teased.
“Not yet,” she replied and looped her arm in his. “I didn’t see the gloves. They must have sold out. I’ll get him something else.”
“Do you regret not coming earlier?”
“Not really.” She shrugged. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Let’s get out of here. I like Aéropostale better.”
A/N: Today I was thinking about the first guy who broke my heart when this story just came out. I’m not sure how good it is, I just decided to put it out there since I’ve mostly been doing plot sketches these days instead of making progress with stories I’m in the middle of writing. A song that goes really well with this story is “Best You Never Had” by Leona Lewis.
Regret.
She could see it flash in his eyes as he gazed at her. How long had it been since they had last seen each other? It was the day of his nineteenth birthday. At that moment, she was twenty-three years old which made him twenty-four. So that meant they hadn’t seen each other in five years…
Five years? Had it really been that long? Time had started slipping away so quickly since she turned twenty and woke up feeling like the melodrama didn’t matter anymore. She was tired of him and his memory. Still her mind strayed to him in her quieter moments, as if it had all taken place only five weeks ago.
It had been during a last minute Christmas shopping run that she had bumped into him in the men’s department at Macy’s among the throng of holiday shoppers that swarmed 34th Street. She hadn’t thought about him in weeks, a new record she had been hoping to keep up until the New Year and hopefully forever. At first she thought her imagination was getting the best of her, but his eyes connected with hers out of all the shoppers crushed together in a grabbing frenzy. It was like he couldn’t believe his eyes either.
The years had offered subtle changes to them both. She had become more slender and feminine in her demeanor, despite her tomboyish nature when she knew him. He had added bulky masculine muscle to his once lean frame and his face was a bit rougher than the boyhood smoothness she remembered. He was a little less beautiful in her eyes since he broke her heart, but he still made her feel like she couldn’t tell her head from her feet when she was in the same vicinity as him. A twinge of hatred for him pinched at her and she cast her eyes onto a rack beside her, moving as if the coats fascinated her.
She hated Macy’s because the store felt thirty degrees hotter than it was outside, and when one dressed in clothes to suit the outdoor twenty-degree weather that made being indoors terribly uncomfortable. Stifling. She hated tourists, oversized department stores, weird salespeople in suits shoving perfume samples at her and pestering her to buy it, and being unable to find what she was looking for in the melee. Even as a born and bred New Yorker, she preferred quiet reclusive spots in the fray. Why had she come into this god forsaken store full of tourists? The one store in all of Manhattan that he just had to be in?
Another stolen glance in his direction revealed that he was still looking at her. He always did think too much before acting. Subtlety had never been one of his fortes. Some things never changed. But she had. She wasn’t the naïve little girl he had left behind. He had broken her and she had to pick up the pieces with her own strength. She had grown up and learned that she deserved better than what he had to offer.
What if he did come over and want to talk? No, she would hold her ground and not acknowledge him. She would act like she forgot him, like she hadn’t cried when he told her that that he was into someone else when they met or how the sound of his name still unnerved her. He didn’t deserve anything from her. He was the one who decided to cut ties with her. As arrogant as it was, she knew he would live to regret it someday. She felt a bit smug to see that she had been correct… Just like she had known from the moment she met him that he would break her heart.
She felt herself being pulled further and further in the opposite direction from him by the customers genuinely interested in the wool coats on her rack. She moved toward another before being pushed back by more shoppers looking to take advantage of the low sale prices.
Regret. Did she regret confessing her feelings for him? For a long time she had. It hadn’t even been her idea to reveal her feelings. She was never the kind of girl who told guys how she felt about them except if she couldn’t stand them. It was her best friend’s idea to help her get over him. Her best friend swore that the best way to get over her crush on him would be taking the leap and telling him the truth, so she wouldn’t wonder what could have been. Looking back, she would have probably gotten over him without telling him that she liked him. The truth had just exploded into a mess. Maybe if it hadn’t happened, they would have said hi to each other and exchanged pleasantries about what they had been up to before going on with the rest of their lives.
The truth hadn’t set her free. It had sent her on a spiral. She could live with him not liking her, she could. It was the fact that he had posted a new Facebook profile picture featuring another girl only an hour after she confessed that she had liked him. All his other pictures featured only himself or all male friends. Was this the girl he told her about that he liked more than her? That cute girl who had such a squeaky voice that she had to bite her lip not to laugh when the girl opened her mouth to speak? Why did he have to take things that far? Hadn’t she reiterated that she didn’t have any hard feelings before he had gone out of his way to spite her? She had made peace with the idea that he didn’t care for her until she made that discovery in the morning when she checked her Facebook homepage. Then she hated him and wanted to punch him in the face.
Her eyes scoured the crowd again for any signs of him. They had met when she couldn’t take her eyes off of him at a very crowded party scene, and she still had a knack for seeing him wherever he was. He was walking towards the exit.
Coward. He always took the easy way out.
Maybe she would have had more regret if she had actually dated him. The thought offered her some solace as the song “Last Christmas” by Wham echoed through the store. It was her favorite Christmas song, in spite of her mother and brother’s instance that they sing it whenever it came on the radio. It was also oddly appropriate for the moment.
She no longer held regrets about telling him. It showed her who he really was. He showed her that she deserved better than she thought. Better than him. Still a small piece of her would always be with him, a small piece of her would continue to wonder what they could have had. Her memories of him were her favorite ones, even though they would be tinged with tragedy.
He would be the one to live with the regret of hurting her, throwing everything away because he didn’t want a relationship that wouldn’t be easy.
“Hey, did you find those gloves for your brother?” her boyfriend asked when he found her among the frenzied buyers. His hair was a matted mess when he took off his hat and ran his hand through it.
A smile crossed his face as she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
“You’re late,” she laughed. His smile was infectious and she wanted to kiss him right there, but they both hated public displays of affection. Away from prying eyes, that was a different story altogether and she would just have to wait until then.
“Did I miss anything? Hit any obnoxious tourists that asked you to play Zagat tour guide again?” he teased.
“Not yet,” she replied and looped her arm in his. “I didn’t see the gloves. They must have sold out. I’ll get him something else.”
“Do you regret not coming earlier?”
“Not really.” She shrugged. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Let’s get out of here. I like Aéropostale better.”
______________________________________________________________________________
A/N: Today I was thinking about the first guy who broke my heart when this story just came out. I’m not sure how good it is, I just decided to put it out there since I’ve mostly been doing plot sketches these days instead of making progress with stories I’m in the middle of writing. A song that goes really well with this story is “Best You Never Had” by Leona Lewis.