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Story Notes:
Heard Eyes Closed by Halsey on my way to work. Wrote this on my lunch break.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Don't own The Office. Don't own Halsey. But I do own an ads based subscription to Pandora and it got me this song, so at least we have that going for us.

Now if I keep my eyes closed he feels just like you

But you've been replaced

I'm face to face with someone new

 

If I keep my eyes closed, she turns into you. 

 

My hands lace through her hair, and I can almost make the pin-straight wind and weave until it curls just enough around my fingers to play tricks on my present.

 

Her skin’s not as soft as yours was that night, when the straps of your dress didn’t quite cover your shoulders and my hands couldn’t quite reach enough of you before time ran out on us.

 

So I pinch my eyes until the pain is more than the feeling of her beneath my fingers reminding me of who she is. Of who she’s not.

 

Because tonight, you looked at me and you smiled at me and you laughed with me and went home with him.

 

I tried to convince myself there was some significance there in that look, that the twinkle in your eye was screaming out to me, was begging me to crawl after you. But I’ve done that before. And I don’t think I’d be able to stand on my own two feet if you put me through all of that again.

 

I wish you would just tell me where I went wrong so that I could start to repair the gaping whole between us. The one that drove me away, and drove you across the banquet hall and into the arms of a man who barely deserves to know your name.


For tonight, I’ll keep pretending. I’ll keep my eyes shut, so that when she cries out my name, I see you on the backs of my eyelids instead, and feel the way that one syllable could sound so much better coming off your tongue.

 

 

Now if I keep my eyes closed he looks just like you

But he'll never stay, they never do

 

This was stupid. So stupid.

 

I know it won’t last. Won’t be more than tonight, if I can even manage to let it get that far.

 

Because my eyes are closed, and I’m doing my best to put you in his place, but it all feels too wrong to put you into this space where he exists and you don’t. You don’t deserve that.

 

His lips aren’t as gentle as yours. They’re rough and demanding in a way that’s scary and strange, even after knowing him like that for years and knowing you like that for minutes that stretched for far longer. They don’t taste like hope and safety and tequila like you do. Like you did when I tried to convince myself that I was just drunk, and kissing you was stupid. It wasn’t stupid. I know that now.

 

Things with him won’t last, and I know that, I know that, but I couldn’t watch you with her anymore. I couldn’t watch you looking at her like that, knowing that you used to look at me that way. That you could still be looking at me that way. Could be holding me. Touching me. Loving me the way that you’re loving her.  

 

Except I made my bed, and now I’m lying in it, with him instead of you.

 

His body feels more foreign after ten years of searching than yours did in ten seconds of being found. I hate it so much that I want to vomit. But I’m beneath him now, with the curls that I did just for you being tugged out by his large hands, and the makeup I did just so that you could see that Hey, look, sometimes I can be as beautiful as she is, too! smudging under his touch.

 

I can’t take it anymore.

 

I shove him away. He’s confused because I’m crying, but he buys that I’m just drunk. He wants to hold me, but I scoot away, because any touch that isn’t yours singes my skin and leaves me feeling so empty that the floor could open beneath me and it wouldn’t matter.

 

Tonight, wrapped in my own bed alone, I’ll close my eyes and it’ll be you instead of him. But you won’t stay. You never do.



agian18 is the author of 25 other stories.



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