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onsunnyside · 2 years ago

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🍁≬ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 (𝟏/𝟐)

𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 | photographer!Ari Levinson x reader

𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 | glimpses of fluff, angst, old flames, childhood friends-to-loves aftermath, ex-boyfriend!Ari, size difference: 6’8!Ari.

𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 | Even the most beautiful love stories are bound to end in tragedy, but you thought you and Ari would be an exception.

𝗪/𝗖 | 3.64K

𝗔/𝗡 | currently in my sad autumn girl era but i know it won’t last long so i wanted to share this with you all. sort of poured my heart into it and wrote most of this in a teary haze last night. Inspired by Taylor Swift’s songs: Sad Beautiful Tragic, Exile, All Too Well, The Last Time. [𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 | all asks]. All mistakes are my own.

˗ˏˋ𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭ˎˊ˗ ⋰˚ 𝐂.𝐄. & 𝐂𝐨. 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Don’t look, don’t look, you force your eyes on the television mounted above the table, half listening to the chatter of your friends and the hushed music playing from the speakers.

A nudge brings your attention to your redheaded friend, “How have you been? You haven’t answered my texts.”

“Sorry, I’ve been working a lot.” The music shop didn’t get very busy, but Natasha didn’t need to know that you spent the past weeks buried in turmoil, revisiting every decision you’ve ever made that brought you here. “I also applied to the dance studio as an instructor, I’m still waiting for them to get back to me.”

Her green gaze pools with worry. Of course, you’d answer a question about how you were with what you were doing. She hated to pry, but she cared for you like a sister. If you were hurting, she wanted to put a stop to it, or talk about it and try to understand. She couldn’t do that if you refused to open up.

“If you want to leave, that’s fine, I’ll walk you out.”

“I’m okay, Nat. I wouldn’t have come if I couldn’t handle seeing him again.”

The both of you know that’s a bald-faced lie. Especially because you’ve done everything to not peek in his direction.

Natasha is drawn away by one of your other close friends, and they fall into an easy conversation with laughs and bright smiles. Their voices fade into each other, a blissful hum filling the loneliness that has clung to you.

I wouldn’t have come if I couldn’t handle seeing him again.

You spoke too soon.

Ever so slightly, you glance at the bar. Over the heads of the other patrons, his gaze meets yours. Deep blue, unreadable and sharp, piercing heavily through your face.

Seeing him now, he’s different. His hair is longer, his beard is thicker, and he’s dressed in clothes you’ve never seen before—apart from his signature leather jacket that he wore for most of the year.

You wonder if the way he carries himself all the same, with quiet grace and self-assurance, too often falling victim to his insecurities.

You missed him.

You missed his stupidly loud alarm clock, his cute bedhead and how he never failed to keep you warm on winter nights. You missed his endless rants about society, space and the world, past, present and future. His mind stretched into infinity, and you never always understood what he was saying, but you listened nonetheless. Listening was the best thing someone could do.

Your eyes fall on the loose and shaggy fabric around his neck. The cream knit was your first little home project, evident with the frayed threads and stubborn coffee stains. That single scarf took you a week because of your lack of experience. You worked on it everywhere, on the train, at work and the park. Your favourite place to knit was next to him as he hunched over his computer desk and went through hundreds of photographs with his glasses on the tip of his nose.

That was the one thing he didn’t mail back.

He goes around the table, handing out everyone’s selected drinks with greetings. “Sorry, I’m late. I got stuck at the studio with this last-minute family portrait session.”

“At least it wasn’t another self-proclaimed influencer.” Curtis snorts.

“Fuck no, thank goodness for that.” He laughs, almost too gleeful. When he gets to you, he simply sets the drink on the wooden countertop and flashes a tense smile.

It either took one or ten minutes for you to sip the drink before you rushed out the back door with an excuse about fresh air.

The cool, November air welcomes you with open arms as if it knew you wouldn’t last very long. You lean on the railing, distracting yourself with the red, orange and yellow trees across the way. The music and chatter fade into whispers, and the crickets and gentle wind take their place. Down below, the water ripples against the rocks, the wooden poles dark and green from the lake, another victim to time, just like everything else.

The fall season itself was a tale of death. The days got shorter because the sun comes and goes all too quickly and the leaves turn into different shades before falling to the ground. Bidding farewell in warm colour pallets and leave the trees bare, mere skeletons of life, dormant and dull.

Then, they’re reincarnated by spring. Brought back by more sunshine and warmth, blooming hues the world has longed for.

You wondered when your spring would come, or if you’d be trapped in perpetual autumn. Be forced to feel every part of you change into red, yellow or orange and fall until there is nothing left and you're in a barren comatose.

You stare down at your dress, the very one he said was his favourite. The soft blue silk is highlighted by the dim fairy lights hung up on the fence. Memories are woven into the fabric and they’re all good because you stopped wearing this dress when things got worse. With a brush of the lace hem, you’re reminded of him.

“I knew you’d look beautiful in this.”

“You have to stop buying me things, we have bills to pay.”

He scoffs, “bills aren’t going to help my girl realize how beautiful she is.” He takes your hand, pressing his plump lips on your knuckles, “I know it, the world knows it, but she doesn’t. And that isn’t okay with me.”

The door swings open and slams into the wall, making you jump.

“Oh shit, sorry!” His voice rings out, “Didn’t mean to scare you, I thought the door was heavier.”

You quickly wipe your eyes, not caring about your makeup anymore. You tried hard to look your best tonight and embody that healed person you’ve pretended to be for the past few weeks. But he couldn’t say hi or your name. Why couldn’t he say your name?

He tucks away his cigarettes, “You stay, I’ll go out front. You probably want to be alone.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m going to call a cab.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Natasha knows I have an early morning.” You keep it simple and duck away from his gaze, hugging your purse close as some sort of lifesaver that was keeping you from floating into the sky. Truthfully, you wouldn’t mind that abrupt escape after hearing his next words.

“Wait—I mean, I’ll wait with you. It’s too late for you to be outside by yourself.”

Your stride doesn’t slow, you hope he’ll get the hint and just go back inside, but with his mile-long legs, he easily catches up to you. His boots land heavily on the boardwalk and the buckles of his leather jacket chime, filling the strained silence.

“So, did you see that new cinema downtown?”

“Please don’t.”

He raises his arms in defence, a smile audible in his voice, “Sorry, I didn’t realize you hated movies.”

“Ari.” Your shoulders slump and the sorrow gets heavier. You swear the world could cave under your feet. “Don’t try to—” You cut yourself off, knowing if you didn’t get away now, you’d regret it, “I want to be alone right now.”

The pine trees sway in the breeze, surrounding you with their natural scent.

He takes one hesitant step back, nodding slowly. “Right, I’m probably the last person you want to see.”

He couldn’t be more wrong and that only worsened the pain. How could he think that when he was the only person you wanted to see every day for over a decade?

It stretches far back to when you were children and living down the street from each other.

How could he think that when you used to wait out on the porch for him to pass by so you could walk to school together? How could he think that when you’ve spent hundreds of hours writing about his face in your diaries, about how his smile could light up a stadium and how his eyes were endless pools of stories and wishes?

How could he?

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Ari’s features grow concerned as the hot tears stream down your cheeks. “It’s okay—” He reaches for you, gently grasping your hand.

“No, it’s not.” You try to shrug him off, not bothering to wipe your face. He knew you were crying out here anyway. He knew you more than he knew himself, so it wouldn’t surprise you if he also knew what you were thinking right now—where did he find the audacity to say it’s okay? “I’m sad—I’m still so sad. And you aren’t.”

Ari stiffens and releases your hand as if he’d been burned. His cerulean eyes are shaded by the night, and darkness bleeds onto his solemn face, “You think I’m not sad?”

You tearily blink, waving towards the bar by the lake. “You seemed pretty happy in there—and you acted like you didn’t even know me.”

Sure, you probably would’ve cried if he spoke to you, but at least he would have acknowledged you. You’d take that glimmer of attention over his silence any day.

“I was—I am heartbroken.” He confesses, his long hair falling over his forehead as he stares down at you, “I didn’t know if you wanted me to talk to you—”

“Yet you followed me out here anyway.”

Even in the moonlight, you can see his cheeks turn cherry red.

“Okay, but I was checking on you. I didn’t mean for this to happen and to make you cry.” He protests, “Am I not allowed to worry about you?”

You close your eyes and shake your head, turning on your heel to continue down the boardwalk. The main street mocks you in the distance, beckoning you with yellow streetlights and the chance to escape, but his fingers wrap around your wrist, holding tightly.

“Wait, please. I’m sorry.”

His touch is warm and familiar, the other end of the double-edged sword. On one end is the busy street, the carefree people living their lives on this fall evening, the cars driving by, and your bittersweet freedom—but also your lonely apartment with your cold, empty bed. The other end, the one entwining with your trembling fingers, is suffocatingly soft and inviting. Enticing you to stay and listen, but at what cost? Would it only bring more suffering draped in so-called closure or more confusion that your heart couldn’t take?

“Muse—”

“Don’t.”

He inhales deeply and you feel his breath on the back of your head. “I’m devastated, I’m alone, I’m stuck in this disordered loop that I don’t know how to get out of.” His grip constricts, once then twice but you force yourself to stay as unresponsive as a corpse. “You were my first for everything, I-I wanted you to be my last.”

You knew that and you wanted the same thing. You’ve discussed it countless nights in your shared bed, whispering about the possibilities that the great big world offered, from tamed to outlandish. Picking up a strange hobby, or travelling the globe, he even mentioned moving to a new country altogether, “think about it. A fresh start, just the two of us and unlimited options.”

“I wouldn’t say unlimited, unfamiliar sounds more accurate.”

“Pick a place, any place and I’ll make it happen.”

“What if I don’t tell you and just take off alone? Soak up all that freshness by myself.”

“Oh, then I’ll find you. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

Experiencing things for the first time together was a big part of your relationship. You were both painstakingly sentimental, which only made it harder to pack your things. Everything reminded you of what was or what could’ve been, you eventually decided to keep what you needed and throw out what carried tender nostalgia.

You never followed through with that, but you do avoid the many boxes stacked in your closet. Full of pictures, gifts, and anything that reminded you of him. That was where you found this dress.

From the seedlings of memorable firsts, it was inevitable that you two gave each other your first heartbreaks too.

The tears come back with vengeance, spilling down your heated cheeks, “You ended things.”

“You walked out!” He rushes to apologize, swerving in front of you before you could take another step. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just please, listen to me.”

Why? He never listened to you in the end.

Whenever you brought up concerns about weird tension or the growing emptiness, he never listened. He was all about work and brushed off dates for last-minute gigs. You knew he wanted a greater future for the two of you, something better than your crowded apartment with your roommates (now the close friends in the bar), and something brighter than the stars combined.

You tried to understand and a part of you did, but the other part couldn’t take it anymore. The part that missed your boyfriend, missed your mindless conversations and quiet nights at home, and when he picked up that camera and photographed you like a piece of art.

That part of you won. You laid down your weapons and went defenceless into his line of fire, with only your heart in your hands and a rehearsed speech in your head.

You never made it all the way through because you two started arguing, right in front of your friends, spitting accusations fueled by rage and doubt, making each other into the bigger villain when it was always clear who was the culprit.

Even now, although you know it’s him, you wonder if you were an accomplice.

Childhood sweethearts turned college lovers, plenty of people have made it all the way—to whatever was their ideal. Many people have also given up, gotten tired, or fallen out of love.

You thought you and Ari were stronger than that, and you wouldn’t let the pressures of life, work, and school weigh onto your relationship. But in the end, those voices were always right, and your shared dreams were crushed at the hands of breakdowns, lost time, and agonizing lulls.

It was ironic how you’re haunted by voices while Ari rarely used his.

Ari wasn’t loud or interruptive. He was quiet and timid, and as he grew up, he slowly came out of his shell and matured into the tall, confident, and gentle giant in front of you.

When you were kids, he wrote adorably misspelled sentences on sticky notes to drop into your lunchbox, and then in high school, he wrote love letters to slip into your locker. The sweetest part was that he never signed them, yet you always suspected it was him. He pretended to be curious about your newest note from your secret admirer and asked about the contents, all the itty bitty details of the proclamation in black pen.

He was after your heart, and he surely got it.

He showed his love through touch, gestures and gifts, through photographs and love letters that were kept in a special box.

It was beautiful in a way that only broken poets, starved artists and silenced lovers could understand. And you and Ari were all three. The tragedy was in colours no one else could see, the script in an undiscovered language, but to you and all the rest of the heartbroken, it was so vivid and clear. You dipped your fingers into that magic shade and poured your heart onto the white walls of the lonely tower, mourning your knight who would never return.

You made the tragedy your home, wallowed in it, and pitied yourself over every missed opportunity—the fleeted moments where things could have changed, leading you somewhere different from where you were. But you tried to get better, to get clean of him and those noisy, unhelpful thoughts. You wanted to save yourself, to gather the guts to leave that tower and climb down to the lush grass and sparkling rivers below.

In delusions, you are happy and satisfied, sober from the destruction. But right now, that false comfort was cracking beneath your feet. You wished to board up the windows and hide away from the world, from him.

“Will you please listen to me?” He pleads, his voice thick, “just listen, you don’t have to say anything or even stay afterward.”

“Why?” You turn to him, gritting your teeth to keep from sobbing. “Why should I listen to you when you never listened to me? When I told you that were growing apart, you just pushed me further away. Does—” Your voice cracks, “Does that not seem unfair to you?” Did you not deserve the same mercy he was begging for?

It was too late if he wanted to listen this time. It was gone, flatlined, buried under the dirt with overgrown weeds and ivy climbing on the gravestone. Your names were etched into the stone, just another miserable end in the cemetery of the heartbroken, the battered and bruised, the forgotten and silenced.

You’ve been a ghost ever since he mailed back the things you thought he wanted. Transparent and floating through the graveyard, weeping in wonder, and feebly searching for that scarf—the one thing he kept.

“I won’t ask again. This is the last time, Ari. You won’t get another chance.”

He opens and closes his mouth multiple times, rethinking every thought racing in his head, but then he finally settles on shutting his mouth. Those plump lips pressed firmly together, a barrier for everything he should say—and everything you had the right to hear.

Defeated, you release his hand. You didn’t realize you were holding him too, it was all just automatic at this point, unlike this moment which is only a rerun of a film you’ve already seen.

Your gaze traces his face one last time, locking everything to memory from the curve of his dark eyebrows, the shade of his blue eyes, the point of his nose, the blush pink of his lips, and every freckle like they were constellations.

In a flash, you’re staring at him from across the classroom, watching him slowly write on a yellow sticky note, his tongue poking from between his teeth in concentration.

Another flash, and you’re watching him bolt down the hallway, passing lockers and other students with his azure eyes set on you. In his hand is an old polaroid camera and he’s wearing the widest grin, “Let’s go to the park.” He almost crashes into you but grasps your shoulder in excitement, illuminating the dull hallway with his glow.

You laugh, “I have class… and so do you.”

“Yeah, but the weather is so nice today.” He pouts, already tugging you towards one of the exits. “Plus, you look really pretty. Wouldn’t you rather be my model, than sit in some dusty old classroom?”

He kissed you that day, under the biggest willow tree in the park with his hand on your cheek. He blushed a nervous red and asked so sweetly, “Can I—May I please…” He trailed off, profusely blinking at your parted lips, “Will you let me b-be your first kiss? And will you be mine?”

And finally, you’re back in the present. His looming shadow as he towers over your lifeless frame, executed by the quiet and unspoken words. You’d take anything at this point, from shuddering pleas to choked apologies—you’d grovel for a single syllable.

“That’s it.” You scoff in disbelief, “all you can do is look at me?”

Again, silence. His eyes pool with tears, seconds away from streaming down his cheeks and matching your wet trails and ruined makeup. He doesn’t speak, but he’s breaking, cracking at the surface like delicate porcelain holding back a flood.

“You deserve better than me.”

No, he doesn’t get to decide that. He doesn’t get to use that stale statement to dig his own grave, right alongside yours before the final self-deprecating eulogy. It didn’t matter if he thought you deserved better than him, all that should matter was that you wanted him, that you still wanted him even after all of this.

“So, you’re just gonna let me go? After all we’ve been through?” After you’ve given him everything, and showed him every part of you and let him in.

The first tear falls, dripping down his beard and onto the worn knit. Then another, and another until they’re streaming down his cheeks and soaked up by the scarf. “You’re already gone.”

There it is, the last nail in the coffin.

Ari has never been aggressive or forceful, but you wished he’d be brave. You wished he’d fight for you, step into the battlefield with an unrelenting resolve to make things right—to get you back. But he doesn’t, he just looks down at you, chewing on his lip with clenched fists.

He’s surrendered to the war, abandoning you in the tower of tragedy, but joining you in the cemetery of the heartbroken. He’s signing his name on the death certificate and damning you and your wistful dreams, erasing every ‘what if’ that has plagued the both of you since you were children.

“You couldn’t be more wrong.”

You swallow the lump in your throat and fight the weakness in your knees, but you refuse to do this to yourself again, to give him a chance he won’t take. You turn around and continue down the dock, your arms wrapped tightly around yourself in a form of self-soothing.

Autumn was a story of demise, but it had to be better than the earsplitting silence. You’d take the cruel cold and neverending abyss over the lack of effort. Right now, there was no spring in sight, no rebirth to raise you from the dead but you’d find your own life someday and somehow without him. You had to save yourself, be your own hero and come out victorious—alone, but triumphant.

𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: i’ve already started a part two for those of us who want a happy ending, so if you’re an angsty person, feel free to just leave it at this part. i’ll let you all know when i have a date. this is also my second time writing angst on here, and i had a few good cry sessions. i know this isn't the usual filth but i hope you all enjoyed this nonetheless.

𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞! i love you all very much. pls take this kith 😚🫶

As always, I hope you all enjoyed this and I’d love to hear your thoughts/feedback !! [my inbox] <3 — ☼ 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐊𝐨-𝐟𝐢 ☼

I don’t do taglists anymore. ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 & 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲: @𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲

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