Always you and me // Part 1

This is the part one cause I am just too lazy to put up the other two parts but rest assured I'm gonna post it today. Without further ado..

Always you and me

Now.

What are you waiting for?

And she stared at me with those disarming eyes, and I swear to you, I saw the world.

The world was mine.

"I hate you! You're everything that makes the world bad, Josh Fenessy! And believe me, if you died, you won't certainly be missed!"

Her hair was swept up by the wind, tangled mess of blonde, but somehow beautiful against the golden and red leaves that danced around her.

She smiled.

For some reason, I smiled back.

"Did it ever occur to you that money isn't the only thing that matters?"

She leaned her head against the trunk of the tree, the rough bark a sharp contrast against her skin. She swung her legs back and forth, and the branch swayed beneath her. I was afraid she might fall, but she kept her balance.

She always kept her fucking balance.

"Come down here," I said, annoyed at having to look up at her.

She laughed. "Come up here!"

I scowled.

"It's depressing isn't it Fenessy? You can't even think properly unless your father tells you what to do and when to do it. Are you scared?"

"Afraid, Josh?" She asked teasingly.

"No," I snapped.

"Come on then!" She scooted over and patted the space she made on the branch.

"I won't let you fall."

I have fallen.

"I have fallen."

She shook her head and her blonde straight hair swayed against her shoulder, and for the life of me I couldn't tell you why I was so mesmerized. "You were alone when you fell. It's different now."

You couldn't even imagine.

I snorted. "I don't need you."

She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.

"You always have these excuses for doing these mean things you do but I know deep down, you just really misunderstood. Do something."

We stared at each other for a long time, and when my neck began to hurt from looking up, I decided that enough was enough.

"Fine. I'll bloody come up."

Her smile grew and it had me climbing the damn tree even faster. It was a tall tree. Tall and large. It was on the very edge of the lake where we usually meet and its limbs stretched toward every direction. Autumn had turned its large leaves gold and red, and I normally would have hated the weather... but nothing was really normal these days.

I sat next to her, in the space she had made, keeping a firm grip on the tree's trunk. After reassuring myself that I was safe from falling, I turned my head and sent her a triumphant smile. "See, there's nothing to it."

She rolled her eyes. "No, of course not for you." She closed the small space between us and pressed the side of her body against me, leaning her head against my shoulder. She wrapped her arms around my elbow. "See," she said sleepily, "if you fall, I fall."

And I just wish it made sense.

"So... not that this will ever happen... but what if you decided not to follow in your father's footsteps and just be you? What would you be? Because honestly, you could be so much more. You're just too blind to see it."

It's gray. I was in this place where everything was gray. No blacks or whites. Things used to be easy like that. Either black or white and nothing in between. I wanted things to be the way they used to be. Black. White.

Not this gray.

My father was everything I wanted to be. My father was everything I didn't want to be. That's white. And that's black. I was feeling both, so that's gray. Stay with me here.

Dean was an overrated holier-than-thou basketball player that everyone worshipped. Dean is the greatest basketball player to set foot in our school. That's black. That's white. But I'm seeing, feeling, knowing fucking gray.

And then, there's her.

"Someone might see us," I said. I felt her tense against me, and I knew she liked things just black and white too. I knew that she was trying to make things between us black and white. Just like before, but just the opposite. Inverted versions of what we once were.

"They're all at the basketball game. No one will see us," she said after a moment.

"I should be there, watching the other teams. We'll be playing their team next week after all."

"I suppose you should be there. And I should be cheering for my best friend, but here we are," she said softly while nuzzling my neck.

And it didn't make any sense.

"If we're going to serve detention, we might as well be civil about it... Do you think it's possible that we could just forget who we are to each other? Just for now."

And the wind blew and the leaves continued their dance, and we sat in that tree I swore to burn down once upon a time.

The questions and answers hung in the air between us. They'd hung there since the beginning. And sometimes she answered and other times I asked. Sometimes we'd acknowledge the inevitable, but not for long.

We wanted it, you know. Black and white.

We yearned for a reality where the irrationality of a black cloud, a white night, a black rose and two members of the most known feuding family, Fenessy and Michaels to be together and it made perfect sense.

It wasn't some petty romance. This wasn't the love that all the girls dreamt about. This wasn't love. There's an end to everything. An edge to everything. The fucking end. And Amie and I... we just reached the edge of a burning hate and we had nothing left to do except fall.

It's not supposed to make any sense.

Sometimes I felt like I was the only one falling. She glided through the days as if nothing had changed. Her friendship with Dean was as strong as ever, even though she was going behind their backs and having an affair with one of their worst enemies. She treated me as if I had been her lover for years instead of someone who despised her for what they are.

She was keeping her balance and I was stumbling around frustrated and stupid, trying to find some semblance of normality in all of this.

She drove me crazy.

"Kiss me."

Yeah, fucking crazy.

"Fenessy! Oh my... Fenessy! Did you fall? What were you thinking?! Are you okay? Say something!"

I had wanted to kiss her for a long time. Maybe since that night during 8th grade that I realized for the first time she was female and quite attractively so. I pushed those thoughts away, though, because she was a member of the Michaels family and never, I repeat that, never does a member of the Fenessy family associate with them. But those thoughts, and that want, came back full force the day she leaned over me, concern marring her features, and told me I had to be an absolute idiot if I couldn't keep my balance is such a large tree.

"You're a basketball player for Pete's sake!"

To this day I still blame the concussion for making me begin to want and desire something so utterly forbidden.

God, I wanted her.

And now I had her, and for some reason the ache for her still remained. Even now, as my lips touched her it spun like a white ball of pain in my chest that grew when she nibbled on my bottom lip and caressed my face with a gentleness I couldn't comprehend.

"I don't understand it either. Do you think I want to feel this way about you? I don't at all. But I can't ignore it anymore. So where do we go from here Fenessy?"

Sometimes I wondered what my father and mother would think if they saw me now. Would they be too shocked to remember to be angry? Would my mother pity me? Would my father cast me away and strip me of my name?

Would I be too caught up in Amie to care?

Yes.

And it just wasn't supposed to make any sense.

A loud roar of overexcited crowd came from the direction of the gym and Amie pulled her lips away from mine and looked toward it.

"Dean's team must have won," she said her hazel eyes were bright with pride and her smile was knowing.

The usual envy of Dean Carter and something more violent took hold of me and I snarled at her. "Guess you'll be wanting to go congratulate him on how wonderfully perfect he is. Suppose you'll want to worship him with the rest of them."

She looked at me. Started at my tone. I expected her to get angry with me and tell me off like she usually did when I spoke of Carter this way. Which was all the time, mind you. I expected a stony glare and a cold shoulder. But I didn't get any of that.

She just shook her head. "Oh Josh..." She said and smiled sadly. She leaned toward me and kissed me softly.

I knew that with that kiss that she was mine. That's white. But she would always have a place for Carter that was right above my own. That's black.

"I'll see you later tonight," She said and with a skill I would always admire, she crawled over my lap and climbed down the tree, her eyes never leaving mine.

And this is gray.

When she was safely on the ground she turned to leave, but then stopped, and stared at me, frowning.

"What?" I snapped.

"Will you be able to get down without breaking your neck?" She asked, her tone dead serious.

My eyes narrowed. "Don't be stupid. Now go. Hurry to your Carter, Michaels before he starts to wonder where you are."

She stared at me for a long time. The sun was falling below the horizon casting a red glow on the grounds. The warm light caught her eyes and turned them a deep auburn.

They burned.

"I wish I could love you Josh."

They fucking burned.

The wind picked up again, the leaves spiraled around her, glowing with the dying light. Golden and red. I closed my eyes. Shut the image out. I wanted it gone.

I opened my eyes and it was gone.

"Are you afraid of change? I am, sometimes I always want things to be stable and concrete... but then it falls apart. For better or worse, it always fall apart. You'd figure I'd be used to it by now, but if I were... this, you and me, wouldn't be so odd, now would it?"

I leaned my head against the tree's trunk and quietly damned the world.

[END OF PART ONE]