Chapter Text
The roads crowded by cars and lights turning on, some raindrops danced down the windows as the clouds closed the sky beginning to dawn. It shouldn’t have been this way. You weren’t sure where careless conversations end and confided confessions begin. When his head turned and a grin formed in his face, impatient, opening his eyes lightly mesmerizing yours; almost a daring truce needless of words.
Blurriness threatened to cover the windows, courtesy of the almost broken air conditioner. Red glow from traffic reflected on his focused driving face. Then, green. He avoided the main avenue, taking shortcuts and streets you’ve never been. You trusted him, ever since the first time you got on the passenger’s seat. You passed bright houses and loud stores. He looked straight ahead, most of the time; he could still talk of course. God knows Art doesn’t shut up once he’s comfortable - and now you do, too.
Tonight, especially, felt different. The silence being filled only by the rain’s sound knocking on the windows. He turned the barely working air conditioner’s heat on, passed his hand in front of you to reach the entrance of it and check its warmth. He scoffed silently when you reached it with both hands, having cold fingers normally.
Movements near you came easy to Art. Checking the temperature from your side, rolling your window up when a loud bus passes next to you mid talking, grabbing your hand to ask for forgiveness when you were jokingly annoyed at him, going as far as to stay a few seconds too late when tapping your knee when he’s excited about a story. One night in particular, his finger hadn’t hesitated taking your hand with a grip only a knot would know and held them close to his chest; once the song hit too loud and you allowed yourself to follow into the lyrics with him. Innocence wasn’t a stranger sat in the backseat between you two.
“You cut your hair,” his eyes never met yours. “It suits you”.
Take care of my girlfriend, was the last thing Patrick said before leaving with a hand wave reaching the door. A thought of a goodbye kiss faded into his mind long before it even existed. Pat wasn’t half as bad as your friends’ boyfriends. You felt like you shouldn’t complain, but there were things only you seemed to notice. He often smiled when he said a joke only his new friends would understand, replied late to your texts or barely even responded – made you beg for a conversation when you asked about his day (he never asked about yours), said it was boring (didn’t even try to tell the smallest details you longed to share with him). You liked him, for old time’s sake. Eventually that likeness beginning to fade as sand on a downside clock.
Three months ago on this same night Patrick had asked you to be his. Your dates filled prior months with pink tulips and barely readable handwritten letters. There wasn’t a need for expectations as it came naturally to him. Tonight leaving you with just a text reading Happy three months with a heart emoji at four in the afternoon, followed by an unread response from you. Happy three months. Ten pm marked on your phone, you dimmed the light to not distract Art. Opened the chat titled Pat above. Still no response.
As a heavy breath escaped your lips Art couldn’t resist but answered glaring into your eyes, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on in your head or should we let the music fill the silence?”
Lost the count to the times Art has driven you home. It was his second year of university and already seems like he has it together, unlike this freshman he keeps inviting into his car to get home safely. Oblivious that you were the one Pat hadn’t shut up about the loudest laugh he’ll ever heard or the addictive sweetness your eyes admired his every move. After taking you home the first time, he understood the enchantment you brought to his night. He had found out just the day after. The day’s heat making his eyesight clumsy from the sweat and his serves to barely cross the net. Embarrassing, he thought to himself as he watched you push harder underneath the sun at the court. Hitting your shots as if life depended on them giving a point. Anger hadn’t known him that day yet, only after he found he wasn’t the one Pat was coming to visit on the court.
“Pat hasn’t done a romantic thing for our three-month celebration date” he hummed. “It’s been a while now; I feel like I’m begging for him to care for me and it’s fucking me up”. You looked at the window, guilty as charged from raising slightly your voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come that aggressive”.
He had a compelling glow in his eyes when he glanced at your trapped eyes to fall in a trance. Only a change in colors from green to red forced each other to break. He absorbed any and all attention you had for the cars passing or the stores opening; leaving you wondering for the next exchange. You often questioned whether Pat would like to know what happens in the car, whether the constellations you could trace were from the stars or the barely noticeable moles in his neck. His curls recovering their waves from the previous wet tying them together, his hoodie slightly bigger than his neck and rolled above the elbow enough for some sports scars to be seen. What a sight.
“Really? I haven’t met the aggressive you yet,” You talked often in the car, while barely finding yourselves at a coincidental time at university. He blurted the response like second-nature. “I’m eager.”
“He used to give me flowers,” you looked at the cars in front, barely wanting to feel his eyes over you. “And cheesy letters with his signature instead of his name. Which I adore but I…” he stayed and listened to the sound of your mind trying to grasp the correct words as he tried to loosen the grip on the wheel.
“This last month I’ve been feeling as if he’d lost feelings,” you continued “he doesn’t tell me what he does throughout the day or when he’s busy. I have to ask for him and I have to tell him about my day. Time and time again I asked him to be more curious about me but I haven’t been feeling like he wants to know about me”.
He pressed his lips unknowingly to your eyes as the curvature of his nose called your attention away from your feelings. His thoughts buried underneath his mind, as much as you tried to read them through his eyes. Art wanted the best for you, he has told you repeatedly. He couldn’t help himself giving your eyes a wrinkle from smiling from something he said. He pushed himself to wake up early to study, as taking you home takes up some time from his night. He takes two bottles of water in case you need one during practices. He texts you asking about a test you told him the night prior. He knows he shouldn’t. There isn’t a single thing that doesn’t come easy to him when it means giving you what you want. Like a prayer he sends wishing to be heard.
“There isn’t anything I could say to make him change,” he carefully selected his words. “I’ve known Pat since we were kids and you know, he can say he wants you,” there was a pause he needed, to reset the volume of his voice from fear that his heartbeat betrays him “he just likes the chase more”