Our Town

Emma remembered something that her mom had once told her, she could almost picture her quaint little mother next to her in the bar, whispering in a soft voice, "Remember that love only hurts when it's true love."

She took a deep breath, and then found the courage to finally look Tyler in the eye. She instantly regretted it. He was still wiping some lipstick off the corner of his lips, with his white shirt sleeve. His mouth looked puffy from being hooked onto the girl by the lips, but his eyes. His eyes looked like they were tearing up, and Emma didn't know if she was just seeing things or if maybe, just maybe, he was hurt too. Maybe he was in love too.

She sighed. Took the high road, and walked away. Not saying a word to Tyler, or the rest of his teammates. She walked straight towards the back entrance and didn't turn around once.

Not when Tyler was calling her name.

Not when Jamie was pulling and her wrist.

And most certainly not when she felt the first tear roll down her cheek. She wouldn't give Tyler the satisfaction of crying in front of him. Not when she had just finished crying only a couple days ago.

Emma passed the bartender, gave him a slight nod that she was trying to exit the building without back tracking towards the front door. She must of looked pathetic, but at that moment she didn't care, because she was being led out the emergency exit of the bar, by a cute bartender that probably took pity on her after being publicly humiliated by her ex boyfriend.

It was in that moment that everything had become clear to Emma. She could almost hear her mom clapping behind her, like she was proud of Emma for realizing just what she needed to do.

She needed to take the job in Boston, and for the second time that night, she decided she would never look back.

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Tyler could see every eye on him. His teammates had their hands balled up into fists and Emma's friends looked like they were about to spit at his feet. He didn't blame them. He wanted to hurt himself just as badly as everyone in the bar wanted to hurt him.

It took a lot out of him not to drop to the ground and grovel for Emma to forgive him for all his fuck ups, when she had first walked in, because God knew there had been a lot. But it had been Emma that had kept all those secrets from him. And it had been Emma who had walked out the door that night. Not him. He stayed. But he also knew why Emma had left.

Tyler wasn't someone who liked to settle down. Everybody knew that. Boston knew that. Dallas knew that. Tyler knew that. But for some reason whenever Tyler would look at Emma as he woke up in the morning, and he long eyelashes were splayed across her face, and she looked so peaceful, Tyler knew that he was going to marry her, if it was the last thing he did.

He had never told anyone that he had indeed gone to look at rings. He had even picked a few out, he even realized that they hadn't been together for long. But someone had once told him that when you know, you know. And he knew. He knew that he wouldn't smile as big or laugh as loud with anyone else. But when Emma walked out the door it was like every thought of finally being with someone for the rest of his life, walked out the door with her. He immediately called the ring shop, told them to in some words "screw off because he lost the girl." Needless to say, he started drinking. And then he started inviting girls back to his apartment every time he started thinking about Emma.

But now she was here, standing in front of him, or least she was standing in front of him. Now she was jut a fleeting image in his mind. Almost like she hadn't been there in the first place. But she had been there, and she had seen him making out with some random girl, and she had left. The old Tyler would normally just go back to the girl he had been making out with, and since Tyler had reverted back to the old Tyler he was tempted to go the bar, get a beer, and then take the girl home. But it was the new Tyler that was screaming at him to grab his balls in his hands and run after Emma. It was either new Tyler, or his teammates, he honestly couldn't figure it out. He was to busy smelling the sweet scent of vanilla that Emma always surrounded herself with. It was all that Tyler needed.

He was out the door faster than he had ever skated in his life. And he was hauling a cab, telling the driver Emma's address, and then yelling at him to drive, well before he knew what he was actually going to do. Or say.

It took him the whole cab ride to calm down the voices in his head.

One side said, she should be the one apologizing, she's the one who lied to you.

While the other side said that he loved this girl, he wanted to be with this girl for the rest of his life. He listened to the latter.

He took Emma's stairs two at a time, not wanting to wait for her elevator. It always took five minutes to get to floor three, and it creaked. He always took the stairs.

And he was standing in front of her door, knocking, yelling her name. And yet he was still standing there ten minutes later, still knocking, and still yelling her name. And then ten minutes turned into fifteen minutes, which turned into twenty, and at thirty he was leaving a note, sliding it under her door, and then pushing the button for the elevator, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would've of taken the creaking elevator.

Tyler walked away defeated. The same taxi driver was still looming around Emma's street when he walked out of her apartment building, and Tyler knew that this guy knew that he hadn't gotten the girl. So he took Tyler's address and told him that the ride was on him. Tyler still gave him a $50, knowing that the ride was only going to cost $10, after all he had taken this ride numerous times before.

Tyler honestly didn't want to go into his apartment. He didn't want to take the fast elevator up to the twentieth floor, and he definitely didn't want to sleep in his bed alone anymore. And by alone he meant without Emma. So Tyler took his time getting out of the cab, saying hello to his doorman, and then slowly walked towards the elevator, waiting a couple minutes to press the button that read 20. The whole ride, Tyler just wished he was in the creaking elevator that took five minutes to reach floor three, but he exited the elevator he was no longer wishing anything. He was looking at Emma, sitting on the ground in front of his door, with puffy red eyes, and Tyler promise himself he would never make her cry again.

Emma chuckled before speaking, "I was planning on going home and for some odd reason I ended up here."

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Tyler had missed Emma's lips. He had kissed many girls in his lifetime, and none compared to Emma's. They were soft, and smooth, and like everything else surrounding her, they tasted like vanilla. He smiled against her lips. It had been way too long since he had been around her.

Emma was intoxicated. She was drunk on love, drunk on Tyler. She could smell the cologne he always wore, never too much, never too little, it was always the perfect concoction of sweetness. She had always loved the feeling of his bed sheets whenever she slept over at Tyler's, they always smelled like him. It made her smile. But her smile quickly overthrown by a moan as Tyler slowly pumped in and out her. Tyler's soft sheets, rubbing against her bare body, the nostalgia filling her everywhere.

Tyler leaned down and kissed Emma, slow enough to let her know that he loved her, but teased her just enough to keep her going. He was still pumping in and out of her, Emma was running her hands over Tyler's naked body, loving the feeling of his dick in her once again. It had been too long.

Emma hadn't remembered how long it had happened, but one moment, before they both reached their climaxes, they had both just stared into each others eyes. Tyler had kept pumping, but she could see his brown orbs staring into her own. And it was then that Emma realized that as much as she wanted to, she wasn't going to stop loving Tyler.

It wasn't that moment that made Tyler realize how much he had missed Emma, it was when she was sleeping peacefully in his arms, and Tyler was too scared to go to sleep for fear that when he woke up she wouldn't be there.

She wouldn't.

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Tyler could feel the absence next to him immediately. He didn't even want to open his eyes. So without looking at Emma's side of the bed, Tyler got up and walked into the bathroom. He tried smelling around, to see if maybe Emma was cooking breakfast, but when he walked out of the bathroom and saw that the side Emma had been sleeping on had been left undented, he knew that Emma had left a while ago.

He walked out his bedroom, and into the living room, looking for any sign that she might be coming back. And it wasn't until he saw the note on the living room table that he knew she wouldn't be.

Tyler,

It's weird for me to think that I might be leaving Dallas still in love with you. I'm normally not the kind of person to leave things unresolved but if I had stayed, I would of stayed forever. I can't tell you how many times over the past couple of months I had wished for your arms around my body, and I got that last night, and I want that for forever. But i need this. I'm leaving for Boston today, and as of right now, I'm probably not going to come back. So I'll leave you with this, thank you for giving me a love that I couldn't possibly ever experience with anyone else. And maybe in the future I'll get my head out of my ass and stop pushing the important people away, but I'm scared that I'm going to lose you again, and I don't think I can handle another goodbye, especially from you. I'm doing this for selfish reasons Ty, because it's not that I don't love you, it's that I do.

Emma

Tyler quickly ran to grab his phone and scrambled to write out his text as fast as his fingers could type, but Emma was already thousands of miles up in the air and 1,551 miles away from him, and yet again, Tyler had lost her, without even realizing it.

Notes

I'm a horrible person, but hopefully this makes up for not updating, but if it doesn't the next couple of chapters will (hopefully).