She was quiet for a while, and she didn't move. I could feel her shrinking beside me, going into wherever it was that she hid herself, deep within her mind.
Then, she spoke up. “I don't mind talking about him. I know you want to know,” she replied.
“It's none of my business.”
She reached over and placed her hand over mine. I looked up quickly, and saw that she looked scared. She looked afraid, and I wasn't sure if I had seen that emotion on her face before.
“If you don't want to talk about it, could you just listen?”
I realized the hidden meaning in her words. She needed to talk about it, and she needed me to listen.
I didn't give her the satisfaction of a nod. It hurt that she didn't care about how I felt about her talking about her ex-boyfriend, her love. It bothered me that it didn't seem to faze her that maybe I didn't want to listen to her talking about her ex.
She waited a moment to see if I would refuse, and when I didn't, she stopped looking at me. “I met Thad when I was sixteen. We dated for about seven months. He was bright, and charming, and he wrote music. He was always writing music, and playing it to me on his guitar. I always told him that he could be a great musician but he never believed me. He would always say that I was only saying that because I loved him.
“I did love him, but I was being honest. I was always honest with him, but his disease kept him from seeing that,” she said.
I looked up at her at the mention of disease.
She didn't look at me. I could see the pain etched in her face. “He had been battling with depression long before he met me. A part of me childishly thought that I could cure it. Maybe if he loved me enough, he wouldn't be depressed,” she said, looking to me with a sad smile.
It hurt to see that on her face. She didn't look right without a smile. I wanted to wipe it away.
“I never could love him the right way. He would be okay for a few days, and we would be happy, and then for the next week he would yell and scream. He'd swear that I didn't love him. There were times when I could swear I didn't too,” she replied. She met my eyes.
“I know you look at me as if I would settle for anything. You look at me as if I'm a naïve child, and I can be. But there were times when I would be standing on the other side of his bedroom door while he was threatening to slash his wrists that I told myself that I didn't love him, and he wasn't worth all of this pain. It killed me that he needed a pill to be happy, that I couldn't do that for him.
“Honestly, I don't know how long we would have stayed together if he hadn't died. I can still remember the phone call. His mom found him in his bedroom. He had overdosed on his sleeping pills. I don't know if he killed himself or not, but I’ve prayed to God every night that he didn't. The thought of him being in Hell hurts me,” she said.
She wasn't crying, but I could see the hurt she was talking about. I could feel it.
Julie picked up her phone, and weighed it in her hand. “I do love him. I think I always will, but we were far from being soul mates. Our love was more like a project that we both decided to start on together. We never could get the right results to make it work,” she replied.
She stopped talking, and we were quiet for a while. The silence was okay, because we were both okay in the quiet.
We didn't need to say anything, because it said it for us.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered.
She smiled sadly at me. She looked to her phone again. “The only reason I kept his number was because for a while after the funeral, I would call his phone, and listen to his voice mail. A part of me hoped that he would answer, and I'd know he was okay. I think his mom finally turned off his phone,” she said.
I saw her go to her contacts, and scroll through until she came to 'My Love'. She pressed the trash bin beside it.
I touched her hand. “Don't. You don't have to do that,” I told her, meeting her eyes.
She smiled. “I need to. For me,” she said. I kept my hand over hers as she pressed the button that said it was okay, and the name disappeared, moving mine beneath Liam's.
There was something significant in the motion. I felt something break inside her as she turned to me and buried herself against my chest. She didn't wrap her arms around me, but I could feel her molding into me.
I wrapped my arms around her, and held her tightly. She was small in my grasp, but perfect. I could feel her pain, as if it had became a part of me too when she touched me. I wanted to make it go away, but didn't know how. I would have given anything to know how.
“I'm making myself look like a fool,” she finally said, laughing as she moved away. She wiped under her eyes, and I saw the wet against her hand.
“You look fine,” I assured her, smiling.
“Really?” she asked.
I nodded.
I watched as she smiled, and pushed her hair behind her ears. “You're a great guy, and a horrible liar,” she told me, closing
