11

                                    

                                          
Wonder was all your brain could do for the entire week. You would wonder during work, during designing clothing, you just couldn't control where your mind would wander. The thoughts that filled your brain that were once the usual ones like music getting stuck in there or what movie you would watch with Juliette on the weekend was now replaced on why you couldn't seem to love Grace fully.
                          
Why? Why couldn't you seem to give her all the love she deserves? You felt so selfish and beat yourself up for it all day and night for not being able to pin point it. It bugged you and the explanation was on the tip of your tongue but you still couldn't seem to wrap your head around it. You felt awful, you felt awful for Grace. She deserves someone better, not someone who was all caught up on a guy who lives across the country who you haven't spoken to in five years.
                          
A little over a week had past since your picnic date with Grace and you had all this time to yourself to think over your confusing love life. Karl texting you goodnight every night wasn't helping you either. He has gotten you wrapped around his finger and you had been leading Grace on.
                          
You needed a break. All these emotions has gotten you fucked up in the head, you had to do something that could distract you temporarily. Just for a moment, a bit if time away from everything. Even from yourself.
                          
You got up from your bed, taking your phone with you, you sat down on your beat up swivel chair. Then you pulled your sketchpad out along with a random mechanical pencil from the cup on the corner of your desk. Your bedroom was dark, no lights on, just the moonlight shining in and illuminating your surroundings a bit from your window. You were sketching ideas, you needed the light so you switched on the desk lamp, it emitting its warm glow.
                          
Your laptop was open and playing your playlist on shuffle. You liked the unpredictability of your favorite songs being played at random, keeping you on the edge of your seat. Especially when your music taste varied from "makeup drawer" by Isaac Dunbar to "Brick by Boring Brick" by Paramore.
                          
Suddenly the song "bored&blind" by Ella Jane began to play out loud from the cheap speakers of your laptop. A smile spread across your face in some sort of premature nostalgia for the song. It had only been released a few months ago but you hadn't listened to in a few weeks. You began to mumble along to the words of the song as you skimmed through pictures of clothing on pinterest to try and inspire as well as manifest some sort of design to replace the confusing thoughts you had been having all day. The song did a good job of distracting you plenty.
                          
Well, how many figures will it take for you to bring me back my heart? 'Cause right now it's sitting in your basement hidden in the back with some stolen art. And, hey, Mona Lisa, why you smiling? Will you give him one for me? 'Cause I locked myself inside his coffin and I was dumb enough to throw away the key.
                          
You sang along to the words unconsciously when the meaning of the very words you were saying along with the singer carelessly suddenly hit you. In the way you interpreted what you just heard this girl was attached to someone and couldn't escape his grasp, the grasp of a hopeless crush. She wanted out so she could move on, but in a bittersweet way she liked it. Okay, maybe the last bit was how you felt, but you were still in a bit of denial. But this was a step forward, you found something, a piece of media you could relate your current situation to. Maybe it could help you understand it better.
                          
Once the song came to it's end, the few seconds between the change of the songs were silent. In that silence, your mind quickly wandered back to Karl. That's when you understood, your feelings settled in and you realized that you couldn't deny what you already knew deep down in your gut. You were in love with Karl and had been for years and years. Grace was just a distraction all along.
                          
Speaking of distractions, as soon as the first few notes of the next song began to play, you immediately paused it and sat back and thought to yourself. What were you going to do? You certainly couldn't tell Karl, especially Grace. At least not now. You needed time to think, so much was happening so fast. Your mind was racing and your head was spinning. You wouldn't be surprised if blue birds were circling the top of your head from how lightheaded the stress of this realization had made you. You had to lay down.
                          
After turning off the desk lamp and closing your laptop, leaving your sketchbook and pencil carelessly spread open on a new, fresh and untouched page, you pressed your back down on your mattress. Your back ached a bit from your once slouched spine being straightened out on your bed. You sighed into your hands as they covered your face before your fingers ran through your hair, all ten of them. You had to resist the urge to yank at your locks out of stress no matter how tempting it seemed at that moment.
                          
Why did life, especially your love life, had to be so complicated? Why couldn't you have accepted this sooner? You wouldn't have gotten into this whole mess. Unlike Max Caulfield, not everybody could rewind time and fix everything with the simple wave of a hand. You had to live with this and it troubled you. Why did your brain have to work so slow? Stupid, stupid! You told yourself as you breathed out a heavy sigh, rubbing your eyes with the palms of your hands to try and relieve some sort of stress. Something, anything to try and stop yourself from being as anxious as you were at that moment.
                          
God, what would you tell Karl? Or worse, Grace for that matter?