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Post by Kat on Oct 1, 2005 23:19:50 GMT -5
After finishing in the locker room Ace said a quick goodbye to Chase and the others in the locker room, shouldering his bag and stepping out of the gymnasium and stopping at his locker. He opened it and took out his law textbook and notes, putting them in his bag before shutting his locker and heading for the stairs. He quickly climbed to the second floor and headed back in the direction of the library.
Walking into the quiet room he instinctively made his way to the back right hand corner, where he saw Starlight sitting at a table working. Pausing before her he looked at her for a moment before speaking. There was no turning back this time.
"Hey, you ready to go?" He forced a friendly smile to his face, hoping he didn't look as nervous as he felt.
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Post by Cres on Oct 2, 2005 1:34:29 GMT -5
Starlight had been dreading the day for ever since they had agreed on meeting. She hadn't been able to concentrate on her studying the whole time she had sat there waiting for him. She had only realised when she had got to school that she had actually dressed up a little for him. Not too much to be conspicuous, but she realised her outfit was far too well thought out to be normal for her. It made her feel uncomfortable. What was she doing?
She kept her eyes hard on the book she was reading, however, and actually managed to forget herself there enough not to notice Ace's arrival. It was only his voice that startled her. She jumped a little and looked up, blinking, then managing a smile. Her hair was fully open now, and she had attached a few star-shaped clips here and there among the golden curls. She was wearing a tight-fitting top which was trimmed with pale pink furry lining around the neckline. As she got up to step away from round the table, it became visible that her skirt extended only to her knees. It wasn't unheard of of her to wear such a skirt, but it was some time since she had done it last. Now she wished she hadn't. She wasn't sure what Ace would think about it.
Her smile was a little more openly nervous, though friendly, as she looked up at him.
"Yeah," she said, turning round quickly to gather her books, so as to hide at least a little of her nervousness. She piled up her books on the table and reached down to pick up her bag, and then quickly put the books into the bag. She tossed the bag over her shoulder and then looked at Ace. Now her smile was a little more confident, though she didn't feel like it inside.
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Post by Kat on Oct 2, 2005 3:13:10 GMT -5
Ace watched as she stood up and began putting her books in her bag, grinning when he saw what she was wearing. She had so dressed up for him. He just wondered whether she had meant to do it, or if it had just been instinctual, like his coming to this corner of the library, where they had used to sit together and study when they were dating.
"Excellent, let's get going then before the parking lot gets to be a mess." He started out of the library, casually glancing to his side and seeing her there. It felt so strange to look down and see her beside him again after a year. Had it really been that long since they'd broken up? Things had changed so much in that small space, at least for him. He wondered how much things had changed for her, if at all.
It was a bit of an awkward silence as they amde their way to the first floor and left the building, heading out to the parking lot to his car. He took his keys out of his bag and pressed a button to unlock the doors. He opened the rear door and slid his bag off, placing it on the seat and sliding himself into the driver's seat, slipping his keys in the ingnition and bringing his car to life. Immediately the radio came on, his favourite station on the air, light and happy dance music filling in the silence. He looked over at her, wondering if she felt anymore awkward than he did right now.
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Post by Cres on Oct 2, 2005 3:27:02 GMT -5
Starlight followed Ace, not sure what she should have made of his grin. She was certain now he had noticed. But what did it mean? Did he think something stupid about it? Or was he pleased? She couldn't tell. She felt insecure as she followed her through the halls out to the parking lot.
She was probably feeling at least as nervous as he was. She thought she noticed him being nervous too, or at least uncomfortable, but she tried to make nothing of it, pushing her own nervousness away as much as she could. She just needed to keep a cool head, and everything would go all right.
But when he started up the car and she sat onto the other front seat next to him, it all came rushing back to her so painful that she had to gulp to keep the tears away. Walking alongside him on the school halls had been so familiar, and being there with him... alone... it brought back feelings and memories she didn't want to know anymore.
Starlight closed the door after her and quickly attached the seatbelt. She didn't let go of her bag, however, but kept it in her lap, squeezing it against herself. She looked down, to her feet, biting her lip. She felt more vulnerable than she wanted to admit. She had always had a harder exterior than what her interior was. And with him, she always had to struggle to keep it from showing.
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Post by Kat on Oct 2, 2005 3:39:20 GMT -5
Ace noticed her clutching her bag, guessing that she must be feeling about as awkward as he was, if not a bit more. It was a little much, to go from not speaking to each other at all and making a point of avoiding one another to going right back into familiar territory. He backed out of his spot, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road, heading in the direction of the Gardiner that would take them into the downtown area. Should he say something? She looked really uncomfortable. He hadn't been expecting so much silence, he was really sure what he had been expecting. Maybe he'd been expecting her to yell at him now that they were alone, to bring everything back up and clear the air.
Clear the air. Maybe that's what they needed right now. He looked over at her, wondering how he should phrase this.
"Alright, obviously this is way more awkward than we probably expected, at least more than I expected." As he pulled up to the off-ramp for the Gardiner, he looked over at her. "I think we need to just say whatever we need to say to each other, just get it over with, otherwise this will never work." He glanced briefly back at the road before returning his gaze to her, wondering if she would say anything.
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Post by Cres on Oct 2, 2005 4:08:47 GMT -5
Starlight stole a glance at him as he spoke, and then looked out of the window. She realised she was still clutching her bag, and relaxed her grip of it to let it fall into her feet while listening to him.
When he finished, she bit her lip. To say what she needed to say to him? How could she possibly do that? There was so much... things she could never say out loud. Though most of it, she imagined, would surprise him. She didn't hate him. Well, not really, anyway.
She felt she needed to respond somehow, still.
"Look... Ace, I'm just tired of fighting with you," she said quietly. It was all she could say.
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Post by Kat on Oct 2, 2005 10:01:57 GMT -5
He was a little disappointed that all she could manage to say was so short. Wasn't she feeling anything else? Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she didn't have any lingering feelings like he did, maybe he was just refusing to really accept things.
"I know, so am I. I guess it's just been easier than doing anything else for us." He looked back at the road in front of him, skillfully manoevering his car onto the busy highway.
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Post by Cres on Oct 3, 2005 7:51:36 GMT -5
Starlight kept looking out the window and was silent for some moments. Her heart felt like bursting with everything she would have wanted to say. To apologise for all the bad things she had said, and to tell him how much she missed him. But he didn't really care, did he? He had been so mean to her with Princess. He and her probably fucked around together and her thing with Rowan was just some game.
She didn't know what to think. She liked to believe that the boy she had loved was still there, somewhere. That Ace wasn't really a jerk. But everything had gone so badly between them for so long, and she just didn't know what to say. She didn't want to set herself out to be scathed again.
"I guess that's why they say you can't be friends after you break up," she said with a more choked voice than she had meant to, and placed her elbow on the car door, pretending to lean on her hand when in fact she was wiping away a tear from her eye.
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Post by Kat on Oct 3, 2005 12:32:26 GMT -5
Looking over at her again he noticed her leaning on her hand. He knew from experience though that she usually did that when she was trying to cover up that she was crying. Of course the tone of her voice just solidified that she was indeed more upset than he had initially believed. He felt a little better knowing that.
"Look, this might not mean anything to you because I know that our break up was entirely my fault and it was a really shitty thing for me to do, but I really am sorry." He looked back at the road for a moment before looking back at her. "I'm sorry for how it happened. I'm not really sorry for sleeping with her, I won't lie to you. But I am sorry that I was too selfish to let you go before it happened. For the last year, I knew I wasn't a good match for you, I never will be. I just wanted to keep you with me because you'd been there for so long and I wasn't ready to let you leave. You're probably one of the few people who've realized I have attachment issues, or at least I hope you noticed that, and I know they stem from my family. You were my family during those years after my dad left, when mom was never around. I really did love you, I want you to know that and believe it." He paused, a little shocked at how everything had fallen out so simply. He had never spoken to her so vulnerably before, so openly about how he felt about things. He would never tell her the whole reason for them drifting, about how she reminded him of such a horrible time in his life after everything fell apart. She made him remember those first years after everything happened and even though she had helped him through it unknowingly then, being around her wasn't helping him now.
But maybe life would be just a little less stressful if he didn't have to walk on eggshells around her anymore. Maybe if he felt at ease around her, those memories wouldn't hit him with such an impact now.
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Post by Cres on Oct 4, 2005 1:45:28 GMT -5
Starlight felt her breath caught in her throat as Ace spoke. They hadn't really spoken at all in months, and now suddenly this? She tried to keep her head cool enough to really understand what he was saying, though her heart rather stopped at the words I knew I wasn't a good match for you, I never will be. How could he say that? How could he know that? He didn't know her heart.
She honestly admitted to herself at that moment that she didn't really understand him at all. She had no idea what went on in his head. She was still living in the world where everything was as simple as "you love me, I love you, that's all that matters". She swallowed. It occurred to her only now that what really mattered with Ace would be something deeper.
But she was at the moment too upset to really start building something new, to tear open her heart to let him know what was inside, and to try and fix everything... to do anything, to explain to him how she still believed there was a chance for them.
She had been more or less the one to break it off between them. But he had always been the one who was drifting away. And what he was saying now felt like he was really breaking up with her - his words hit her like nails right through her heart. He was saying goodbye forever.
Starlight took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting her arm drop from the door and leaning her head back against the seat. She tried to pull herself away from the logical initial reaction to his words - closing up.
"I do believe you. It's just..." She sighed. "I used to think... that love is all you need," she said quietly. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "I always loved you, Ace. I never stopped loving you. I just... still don't understand what went wrong."
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Post by Kat on Oct 4, 2005 8:03:35 GMT -5
She still loved him. Even though he'd treated her so badly, she still loved him. He was torn now between being happy about that and being sad. It was always nice to know that someone loved you despite your faults, but he just felt guilty. He knew he had a bad habit of drawing people in and making them get attached to him, manipulating them so much that they truly thought they needed him in their life when it was really the opposite. The two most important people in his life had left him once with no warning, and it had scarred him so badly that now he wanted to ensure no one else would ever even think of leaving him unless he pushed them away.
But Starlight apparently hadn't been pushed enough. Half the time he didn't understand why he'd bothered to push her away at all. He could tell her everything and it wouldn't be the end of the world. She'd known him long enough to be worthy of that secret, but he just couldn't bring himself to bog her down with it.
"Sometimes a person's world gets so screwed up that love on it's own just isn't enough anymore. My life is like that now. A lot of people love me but it's not enough to make things alright. The closer someone is to me the more I push them and test their limits. I'm constantly making them prove to me that they care and that's not right for me to do. But I just can't keep it in my head for longer than a few hours that yes, someone really does care about me and they're not about to change their mind. It's totally illogical and unsensical of me, but it doesn't even matter that I know that what I'm doing is unnecessary, I just keep doing it." He paused and looked over at her. "You don't need that in your life, Starlight. You should never have to prove to someone constantly that you love them. I was always testing you when we were together, saying things to see how you would react, urging you to do things I knew you didn't want to do just to see how far I could push you."
He looked back at the road, sliding the car off on the appropriate exit to take them into the downtown streets, wondering if he should even bother to go to the library. Maybe he'd just take her to his place, the library wasn't that far anyway and they could walk there after sorting things out. "I just want you to know that as rotten of me as it was to treat you the way I did, it only ever got that bad because I loved you so much that I constantly worried you would leave me, so I kept pushing you away in the event that if you did leave, it would be because of the way I was treating you."
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Post by Cres on Oct 5, 2005 1:00:40 GMT -5
Starlight felt shivers run through her as Ace spoke. She struggled to understand as perfectly as she possibly could. He still didn't officially date anyone else. Maybe it meant they had a chance. That was what Starlight wanted to believe. But for them to have a chance, she realised she needed to understand what Ace was telling him now. She mustn't get emotional.
Though it was hard, she managed not to interrupt him at any point, and simply listen.
She tried to forget that which had hurt her most in his behaviour; him sleeping with Princess. It wasn't the right moment to question him of it. If it was part of this "pushing away" or if it was something else, something she still didn't understand.
"Ace..." she began, then her voice broke off for a moment, as she wasn't sure what she wanted to say. After a moment's pause she continued again. "I only ever left because I thought you didn't love me anymore."
She took another breath. She felt suddenly very guilty. Guilty for ever breaking it off. How could she now ever prove to him that she wouldn't leave again?
"The trouble with you, Ace," she said quietly, "is not that you didn't love at all - but that you love too much. You want to control everything, all the time. Even other people's love, and their lives. You decide that it isn't good for me to be with you. And you think you're doing me a favour. But shouldn't it be my choice?" She looked down, fiddling with a little fur tuft hanging from her bag. "I know I did leave, but it wasn't because of the way you were treating me so much as because I just didn't understand why you were doing it. I thought it meant you didn't love me anymore."
Starlight felt her heart was trying to strangle her as she spoke, and she had to stop for a while, just to calm herself. Fear was gripping her suddenly all over. She felt so desperate. She loved Ace too much. She wanted to assure him that they belonged together. She wanted him back. But now she was afraid of what would happen if they did get back together. Would she handle it? Would she have the strength to pull him from the pit he was digging himself deeper and deeper into? Did she love enough? Was it right for him to even try to make him trust her? What if she would make promises she couldn't keep? She couldn't forgive herself. But how could she just let him go? Especially knowing that he might continue to be with Princess. She'd screw him up for good. Starlight's head was reeling with questions.
Suddenly, it felt to her, she needed to talk with Sweetheart. Sweetheart was the only girl she knew who might understand, who might have an advice for her. She had, after all, gone through something similar with Teddy a long, long time ago. Even if it had been just puppy stuff for them.
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Post by Kat on Oct 5, 2005 9:16:07 GMT -5
He listened to her talk, smirking to himself at the comment that he loved too much-- if only she knew how true that really was, what with a few other people in his head and heart. He knew she was right about controlling everything, he'd never been one to deny that. Ever since his father left he'd had control issues and now after six years they'd pretty much spiralled out of control. Just like he had.
Turning onto Queen Street, he decided he would go right to his building and park in the garage, then ask her what she wanted to do. He glanced at her again, taking her silence as his cue to talk again. "I still do love you. It's just not a healthy love and I don't think your love for me is a healthy one either." Expecting a reaction out of that he pushed on before she had a chance to say anything. "Why do you love me? Honestly, with everything that I've done to you and put you through- I just admitted to purposefully making you uncomfortable to see how you would react, to pushing you and constantly making you prove to me that you loved me, hell I cheated on you and yet you still love me. Why?" A red light offered him the opportunity to turn and look at her, reaching his hand out and softly brushing his fingers over her arm, moving down to lightly take hold of one of her hands.
Even now, when he was half-determined to really sort things out between them, to try and figure out what they really meant to each other, even now he was still subtlely prodding her in the direction he wanted her to go. He could tell she was fighting back her emotions, trying not to cry and he was offering just a simple bit of physical support that would hopefully bring her to remember all of the good things they'd had to counter all the bad he'd just offered. Putting himself down just to make others build him back up was a game he played way more than he wanted to, but he could never quite help himself when the opportunity presented itself.
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Post by Cres on Oct 6, 2005 1:46:25 GMT -5
Starlight would have had plenty to say about his comments on "healthy love", which actually made her temper rise a little. As he continued, and she felt his hand brush on her cheek, tears welled up in her eyes. It had exactly the effect Ace had been after. All the good times came rushing back to her. Everything they had done together - she remembered like she had often thought that her dreams were coming true when she was with him. He could be so wonderful, when he chose to be.
She smiled a little and looked at him through her eyes, filled with tears.
"Because of the good times, Ace," she answered him, totally oblivious of any manipulation he was using on her at that moment. She had never been as naive as Sweetheart, but she did have that trait. At least when it came to Ace. She wrapped her fingers round his hand, holding it tight. How good it had used to feel to just sit together with him somewhere, holding hands. It was the simple things like that she missed the most. "Because I know how good it can be between us. I know you're not all bad. Inside. I don't love that loudmouth you can be sometimes, but I love what I have seen in you, when we're together. You can be so wonderful, Ace, when you choose to be. And don't they say... true love takes both the good and the bad."
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Post by Kat on Oct 6, 2005 9:52:00 GMT -5
Glancing back at the road he saw the light turn green. He kept hold of her hand though, wanting to give her just a little bit more time of remember the happy things before pulling his hand away. He knew her so well to know exactly how much of something she would need before he had her the way he wanted her to be. His building in view, he looked back at her. "Listen, I really don't think either of us would be able to work right now, so do you want to just stop in at my place for a little while first? The library is only a few blocks down the road and we can walk there later, it's nice out today so it'll be nice to walk over I think." He squeezed her hand a little. "Besides, you haven't seen my new place yet anyway." He winked at her, wanting to wait until they were inside before resuming the serious part of their conversation.
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