Old flames

You scroll to the end of the list, your eyes sliding over each reminder of your own poor planning, not wanting to engage with any of it. Returning to the top, going over it all again, that sinking feeling in your gut gets worse, and you feel a powerful urge to just turn off your phone and blow everything off for another day. Or a week. Or forever. Fuck it, why not? What are your responsibilities going to do, chase you down?

"What's the matter, RC? You look awful sour for a Friday afternoon."

That voice. Immediately your whole body stiffens, and you have to fight the instinct to run. What the fuck is he doing here? And why does it suddenly feel like you can't catch your breath?

You turn to face your ex, giving him a look that you hope says an asskicking is coming his way. "The fuck do you want, Tony? I thought I told you to never talk to me again after last time."

"Yeah, but I miss you." He brushes his dark brown bangs away from his stormy blue eyes. "And I'm a little hurt you'd use that fake tough-girl act on me, of all people."

"It's not fake—" You catch yourself, the sound of your own voice stopping your protest in its tracks. Shaky, strained, cracking like an adolescent. The fuck does he mean he misses me?

Tony gives you that little smile that used to tie your stomach into knots, and apparently still does. "Hey, it's ok, I get it, you want to keep me at a distance." He looks down at his dirty sneakers, and then back up at you. "Can't say I blame you."

The world feels like it's spinning around you. What the hell is going on? You should already be down the hall and out the door. Why the hell are you talking to him? Why are you giving him a chance to work his bullshit on you again? How have you not learned your lesson yet? "Yeah, you know what? You're right, Tony. I do want you at a distance." You spin on your heels and take a step away.

Before you can take another, he calls out after you. "I guess I'm just having a hard time holding onto this secret, is all."

What secret? You freeze in place. His voice was way too loud. Even though the halls had begun to empty out, there are still a handful of other students walking around, and a few of them turn their heads at that. You storm back up to him and get right in his face, trying to ignore the memories the smell of his cheap deodorant brings up. "What the fuck are you talking about, Tony?" Your voice is a sharp hiss, but the fear in it is impossible to hide.

He has a different smile on his face, now. The one that makes his eyes sparkle and shine. The one that says he knows he's beat you again. "Well, I can tell you don't want to talk about it right now. Seems a little too public, no?" He cocks his head a few degrees to the side, another tic of his that floods your mind with unpleasant memories. "Tell you what, I need to get to practice. Why don't you come meet me after, out by the soccer field, and we can talk about it."

You open your mouth to respond, then close it again, not trusting your voice. Instead, you just give him a nod, hating him for making you feel this way again. Hating yourself for falling for it.

"Alright, sweet. Looking forward to it, RC. Been too long since we've had a nice talk." He turns to walk away, then pauses and looks back over his shoulder. "Oh, and don't be late. If I don't see you I might just have to tell all my teammates. You have no idea how hard it is to keep something this juicy bottled up."

You watch as he disappears down the hall, your body vibrating with emotion as you desperately try to calm your breathing and slow your heartrate. How long has it been since you'd last talked to him? Months. Long enough for you to start to forget how bad it still hurt. Long enough for you to let your guard down.

A dull, bitter anger settles in your gut, and you start walking the long way around campus to the sports fields. Your hand squeezes your phone in your pocket, reminding you of everything else going on in your life that now won't be done, thanks to Tony. Fucking Tony. Wasn't that always how it was, with him? The whole time you'd been together – most of junior year – he'd managed to worm his way to the very top of your priorities. The very center of your life. Always convincing you his needs came first, always making your other friends and desires feel secondary. Like a black hole, he'd sucked you in, your whole world orbiting around him, nothing outside his pull mattering at all.

Which is exactly what you'd wanted, right? You'd been running away when he first caught you. Trying to escape from a soul-shattering heartbreak. The thought of letting him become your whole universe and taking all the pain away had seemed like salvation at the beginning. And he wasn't so bad, not on the surface. He was funny. He was cute. He was interesting. And the sex was so good. Good enough to make you forget the bad, even when the bad became all of it. Good enough for a foolish mistake a few months ago, when you'd been in a very low place and he'd somehow known to send you a text. The memory of that night still made you feel the urge to take a long shower. A hot one. Hot enough to cleanse the memories of his touch from your skin. Hot enough to mask the heat between your legs.

The sound of shouting pulls you out of your memories. You'd made it to the edge of the sports fields. The boys lacrosse team is hustling and yelling their way through drills to your left, the back entrance to the gyms and locker rooms is on your right, and above you grey overcast skies reflect your mood. If you keep walking you know you'll pass the baseball field, the football field, and eventually the soccer field where Tony is. Where he's waiting for you, holding on to your secret.

Just as you start to wonder which secret it is he's talking about – he'd pulled so many out of you during your time under his spell – you hear a voice. The one voice in the world that twists you up more than Tony's. Calling you a name you've never given to anyone else, one that still makes you ache with the loss of a future you hadn't been able to reach.

"Oh hey, Charlie! Didn't think I'd ever run into you here. Since when are you into sports?"

You turn around and fall into a pair of emerald eyes, twinkling above densely freckled cheeks wrinkled with a grin. "Emily. Hey, I... how are you?"

The girl you'd given so many firsts to brushes her dirty blonde hair back as her grin widens into a smile. "Good! Good... just getting ready for track practice. Still need to get changed. Damn! It's been a while, huh?"

"Yeah..."

Her eyes shift, giving you a look of concern without dulling the smile on her face. "Hey, are you OK? You look kinda..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I mean, not really. I mean... I just got a lot goin' on, y'know?" You try to return her smile, which only sharpens the concern in her eyes.

"Heh, yeah, I hear that. To be honest I'm not super stoked about getting to practice right now. Fuckin... life's been crazy lately."

Hearing her slip into that easy, warm tone with you turns your attempted smile into a real one, and also twists your heart. There was a time, a long time, when you'd have known all about what was going on with her, what was making her life crazy, why she wasn't stoked to go to practice. She would have told you all of it, if you hadn't been responsible for it yourself. "Crazy sounds about right, Em."

She looks down and to the side, one hand grabbing at her other arm in that achingly familiar way. The way that told you she wished someone else was holding it. Suddenly an entirely different kind of memory comes flooding back. "Hey, Charlie, this might be stupid, and I really should be going, and I don't even know what you've got going on right now, but... it'd be nice to catch up a bit, maybe? Locker room should be empty right now, it'd be nice to be alone with you, for a bit." Her eyes look back up at yours, the green fire in them stirring old embers you thought had been long snuffed out.

Emily... Part of you knows you shouldn't say yes, for so many reasons. What if you lose track of time, and Tony gets tired of waiting? What if this is a mistake? After everything that's happened between you surely "catching up" in the locker room is the last thing you need. But you're so scattered and hurt after your encounter with Tony, and just the sight of Emily's sweet smile is already making you feel better. Maybe spending a little time with her is exactly what you need to recover yourself before you face down your ex again.

What's the worst that could happen?