Boys Like Mascara, Always Run - Alexandria Martin (short novels in english TXT) 📗

I have always dreamed of love. I craved it like bears crave honey. The promise of it was irresistible to me. So when I was twenty and met Evan I was lost. He was charming and sexy, he seemed perfect, so unlike the others.

I fell in love. He didn't. He just fell in lust. You would've thought it would have been simple. We would go our separate ways, but we were too attached. He to my body, and me to him as a whole. So we stayed together. Everyone else said it was disaster in action, but I didn't listen.

We were together for over a year. I had written on my walls Evan and Ben. That didn't matter. It was gone before it began. We just didn't notice we were too busy to care.

So when it was over I was surprised. He told me he was in too deep. He wanted to run. I was twenty-one. Now I look back, and notice I was a fool. I want to regret what I have done, but something holds me back. It is the lure of love. I know I should have learned my lesson, but I haven't.

I'm twenty-five with few lessons learned. How I got through life is unknown. My life is based on unstable risks. The ones most people don't dare to try. My music loud, my music is vibrant, but my heart has cracks, just like everyone else's.

I can't take it, my brain is unhinged. I can't hold down a job, so why do I try? It is the lure of love that keeps me alive. It is the lure of love that makes me try. I have to fight not to surrender the control that I have, but some days I wonder what it would be like to have Evan back. I push back those thoughts, he can't have control, but somehow he still manages to rule my life.

It has been four years since we broke up, three years since I last seen him. Yet I still hope I can see him, just one last time. It is slivers of hope like that keep me from finding love. That keeps me from holding down a job. It is those slivers of hope that keep me from moving on.

I have told myself that he doesn't love me. He doesn't think of me. That I'll never see him again. My logical brain agrees, but my heart holds true to form. It doesn't give up hope. Every time I think of him, my brain goes on the fritz. Every time I wonder why I still care, I get the same answer. He was the closest I came to the stars, and as crazy as it seems, it is true.

When people ask me what I know of love I tell them, "I'm twenty-five with few lessons learned about life, and a zillion learned about love. The first one I learned is that you have to reach for the stars. Second you have to believe in fate and destiny. I heard once that destiny is the path you are supposed to take, and fate is the force that knocks you back on that path. So if a relationship is a dud, don't worry, that's just fate. However don't get me wrong, if you think it is worth fighting for (and trust me love is) then fight for it. The last lesson is that love always has a way of coming back to haunt you."

I was working in a coffee shop, when he appeared. He looked like hell to tell you the truth. His black hair limp and stringy, his green eyes dull, his shoulders slumped. He looked closer to forty, rather than the twenty-seven I knew him to be. When he reached the counter and took a good look at me, he croaked out "Belinda? Is it really you?" I nodded. Funnily enough Landon Pigg's "Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop" was playing in the background.

He stayed until I finished my shift. I went over to his table. We started talking about what had happened in the years we had been separated. A lot had. He couldn't hold down a job like me. We were both struggling to make ends meet. Somehow the conversation had drifted to what had happened between us. He said he would be willing to commit. I wasn't so sure. So I said I'd think about it. When he came in the next day, I said I'd think about. It was the same every day, for three years. Finally I said yes, he had shown that he was committed.

We are getting married. I hope it lasts. Love is dangerous. Love is risky. Love is worth all the trouble it puts you through. Boys may be like mascara, but there are the few waterproof ones. Evan wasn't for a while, but they changed his formula. Now I think he holds up quite nicely to water.

Publication Date: 03-01-2010

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