·I see a red door & I want it painted black·

[kristay]

Cameron laughed at her sudden passionate speech. "Honestly, I don't know what makes me tick so I guess I can't tell you since I don't know myself." He thought about the very last time he had been truly happy and he remembered it and smiled. "Valentine's Day last year... I was happy because I was with someone that I knew I wanted to be with forever... I guess I didn't know it then, or admit it at least. But my heart knew it would be her." He folded his arms across his chest and thought about the very last time he had been angry. "I dunno; I don't get angry often... I guess it was when my little cousin, Aya... She's not so little actually, but she got her heart broken. She came in the house half-frozen; she had been walking around the park and it had been freezing but she didn't notice because... Well, because someone broke her heart." He paused, ran a hand through his hair and smiled softly. "I was the angriest then."

[❀ Melíssa]

      Chelsea almost stumbled in her steps, remembering an evening when she found herself wandering aimlessly around in Sheep Meadow when she had no recollection of leaving Bethesda Terrace. No recollection of ever making that walk.
      In an effort to drive her focus away from her own shadowed past, she jumped back into the questions. "So what happened to the girl? If you wanted to be with her forever, where is she now?"
      "And how about your cousin? Was the guy like the biggest dickhead on the planet? Did your cousin cope well?"

[kristay]

Cameron chuckled softly. "She's around actually; she's the uh... 'complication' in my life as of now." He shook his head and glanced at her. "Maybe it was because I was scared to get tied down... Scared that she wouldn't love me back and when I confessed, I'd get my heart broken. Or maybe I was scared that I'd be the one to let her down; I'd act like my manwhore of a father and sleep around." He ran his fingers through his hair before glancing at Chelsea. "I dunno... I really don't..."

He laughed at the thought of Monte and Aya and everyone else who had been involved. "Get this: she had cancer at the time too. Though I guess I couldn't really blame him; it was a long distance relationship that went awry. Fate didn't want them to communicate and the both of them thought that the other was breaking it up. It was sad really; honestly, I think they still love each other. But the guy has a girlfriend and Aya's dating someone else." Cameron shrugged. "I think Aya's in love with the guy she's going out with too; tell me... Is it possible to fall in love with two people at the same time?"

[❀ Melíssa]

      Chelsea watched Cameron struggle to explain his previous relationship… or current one. “So, you had no trust in yourself? Man, who’s pessimistic now? Is cheating and whoring yourself out something you have a long history of that would make you doubt yourself that much?”
      She pondered what he told her about his cousin, alarm raising in her head at the word ‘cancer’. The she noted he described it in the past tenseand chose not to bring up back up, instead moving on to the question lingering in the air. “Absolutely I think you can be in love with two people at the same time. Sometimes I feel like you can be in love with someone when you know you shouldn’t be. And then someone comes along that you should be able to fall in love with one hundred per cent, but there’s some portion of it that’s stuck with the other person, no matter what, whether you really want it to or not.”

[kristay]

Cameron laughed. "I'm not pessimistic, Chels... Just wary. I mean, my old man's blood runs through my veins. I was his bastard son and knowing him? He probably had a lot of other kids before my stepmom whipped him into shape." He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "I guess that's what Aya feels about Monte. No matter how long the time between them has elapsed, no matter if they're with someone else, she's always going to love him... Somehow..." It sounded so sad to him though and it made him understand why sometimes, he found Aya sitting on the roof, just staring listlessly at the dark sky, probably hoping, wishing, that Monte was okay, wherever he was.

[❀ Melíssa]

      “I’ll pose a question for you. Is it possible to not be in love at all, but believe that you are? To wish for it so much that you truly convince yourself that it’s there. With someone who’s so bad for you that they’re like poison?” Chelsea stopped walking for a second. “Hmm, poison,” she mused as she pulled her phone from her pocket and found the shortcut to the voice recorder. She mumbled into it, “Poison. Poisonous? Not a ballad, more acidic.” She slipped the phone back into her pocket before falling back into place beside Cameron, and gazed up at him again. “Possibly even bad for those around you. God, what was I thinking?”