wonderwall ♔ k. bryant

twenty-five

A/N

lol i just hope y'all are prepared

and if not

get prepared

:))

Mallory

"I feel like I'm going crazy, Lauren," I tell her as I'm over at her apartment.

"How so?"

"I saw my dad when I was at the airport last week." We got back to Chicago a few days ago, but I haven't been able to talk about this with her since we came back.

"You're kidding. Did you talk to him?" She asks me and I shake my head.

"No, but I've been trying to find out more about him. Does that make me crazy?" I looked him up on Facebook and look around through his now wife's page, and found out that their family lives in Springfield, she's a nurse, and he currently teaches at one of the high schools there. This information has nothing to do with me, but I would be feeling a whole lot better if I didn't even know this.

"It doesn't make you crazy, Mallory," she says, "You're just curious about what's going on in the life of someone who should have been there for you but left for his own selfish reasons. It's not crazy, and I would have done the same thing."

This never affected me. What my father was doing with his life never concerned me, and frankly, I couldn't have cared less. And then I saw him. I saw him and his family, and I suddenly began caring. And I fucking hate that I now care so much, just like how I fucking hate him.

"I just don't know what's going on with my life right now. With seeing my dad again and the fact that I haven't been able to decide how I feel about someone that I'm around almost every single day, I feel like my life's something only a writer could come up with."

"I know it's not easy for you to feel some kind of stress with your dad. But hold on. This 'someone' you just mentioned... Is it..." She doesn't even have to say his name, and I know who it is.

"Sadly."

"Tell me more, Sunshine."

"He was there for me the same day I saw my dad. I was having... a breakdown, and he was there to calm me down, he was there to listen to me, he was there to make me feel like I was actually worth something- He was just there, Lauren. And ever since we had that thing that we did a few weeks ago, my feelings about him have been a mess, and what he did the other night wasn't helping. I mean, it did help my other situation, but not this one..." I feel like I'm just rambling at this point. But Lauren doesn't care, she never cares that I'm rambling because she's always been right there to help me if I've been rambling for ten minutes straight.

She presses her lips together for a moment as she tries to think of a response. "You might love him, Mallory."

"Hold on-"

"-Hear me out. I've been around the both of you. I've seen the way you two act around each other. I've seen how you guys even look at each other, and that's just from the few times I've been around you two in the same place. I've also heard how you've talked about him to me when nobody else is around. Maybe you don't 'love' him, per say, but I'm just saying, whatever it is between you two, it's most definitely more than, "Eh, we're just around each other a lot and we're good friends.' You might not know everything for sure, but I think you know that one's true."

I sigh and look down and start twiddling my thumbs. "I think you're right, Lauren."

"When am I not right, Mallory?"