I wrote this a couple of months ago when I was in an angsty, sad mood. It was one of those things where I just sat down and started writing. I let the words take me in the direction that they wanted without thinking too much about it. I had forgotten all about it until I was cleaning out the documents on my computer today. I wasn't going to post it because it's unpolished and not all the details are fleshed out, but then I just decided to say fuck it.

If you like angsty Naley, then this is for you!

The invitation is heavy in his hands—the glossy, script words gleaming in variations of gold and pearl. He sees the words, but he doesn't want to read them. If he reads them, it becomes real and the last thing he needs is a dose of reality.

It's just a formality, he's not stupid enough to think otherwise. She doesn't want him there—she'd rather die. It probably took weeks of cajoling from her mother before she finally huffed out a defeated sigh and placed a stamp on the envelope.

He can tell all that by looking at the crooked stamp nestled in the corner of the crumpled white envelope. Haley James is a perfectionist and surely, she spent hours making sure each stamp lined up perfectly. That's just the way she is. It's something that he used to drive him absolutely insane but made her so innately her that he couldn't help but be secretly enamored with it.

Her careless gesture with his invitation is a slap in the face, a knife to the back cutting through all the armor he thought he'd built up over the years.

She doesn't want him there just as much as he doesn't want to be there.

But he's going to go anyway. Because even after everything, she's still his best friend. From the sandbox.

They were eight years old when he promised her that no matter what, he was always going to be on her side. He may have been referring to the capture the flag game they were playing during recess, but somehow, that promise followed them faithfully through the years.

He's not going to break it now, even if she's marrying someone that isn't him.

~x~

It's supposed to be a late-night drive to clear his head, but he ends up at her doorstep instead.

He tries to reason with himself that her apartment just so happens to be on the way into town and his original destination was the bar on Main Street. Every part of him knows that's a lie, but it makes him feel better for a fraction of second.

The burnt red door is both something so achingly familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. He'd knocked on that door so many times, pinned her against it as he listened to her shrill giggles float through the night air like thin sheets of paper.

Rain pelts his jacket, slicking his hair and piercing his skin. The cold eats at his bones, but he's too numb to feel it. Rain used to be their thing and he can almost hear God laughing at the irony of it all. It almost feels too perfectly planned, like the man upstairs has a personal vendetta he's trying to settle.

He wants to cry. Punch. Kick. Scream. Something.

He does none of that. He knocks on her door, almost habitually, like he has the right.

It takes her too long to answer and he wonders if maybe she's not home. But the clank of the lock loosening and the creek of the door has his heart beating again.

When the door fully opens, his knees buckle. There's not a hint of surprise on her face, but she's always been a gifted actress. She prefers to keep her heart locked in a cage, rather than wear it on her sleeve.

But he knows her well enough to know that she's mystified by his unannounced arrival. It's in the way her eyes just slightly widen, the tiniest wrinkle present between her eyebrows. It's only a flicker of emotion, but he catches it. He always was quick like a fox when it came to her.

Surprisingly, she doesn't question him, only steps aside, silently inviting him in. It's so unlike her that he almost checks to make sure he knocked on the right door.

He was expecting her to slap him. Scream at him until her throat was raw. At the very least, slam the door in his face. He would have deserved it.

Her almost complete indifference towards him makes him wonder if maybe he never even knew her at all.

Walking into her apartment, he's met with the strong smells of cinnamon and spice. It's toasty, crackles and pops from the nearby fireplace filling the dense silence. He feels a sense of…home. It's something that, long ago, he never knew he wanted but it soon became something he lost.

He looks around her apartment and he tries not to notice all of the boxes and bins. Her walls, which used to be lined with picture frames and quirky art he always made fun of, are bare. Faint stains of where they used to hang mock him, the emptiness already forming as a pit in his stomach.

"Where's Julian?"

She's busying herself with making a cup of tea, avoiding his gaze. He smirks a little at this—maybe she hasn't changed completely.

"It's his bachelor party tonight."

Hearing her voice again sends electric shocks through his body, even if her tone is lifeless.

They hadn't spoken in over a year, mostly on account of him. When an overseas assignment became available at his agency, he took it without a second thought. He viewed it as a sabbatical from his own fucked up life.

Twistedly, it only took her that same year to fall in love with someone else.

Tomorrow, she becomes a wife, but not his wife. It still doesn't feel real. When he first heard the whispers of her engagement float through town, he laughed. A genuine, full-body laugh until his cackles turned into sobs.

He still blames it on hysteria.

"No bachelorette party?" The crack of a smile on his lips falls on blind eyes.

"Too much of a cliché," she mutters, spooning way too much sugar into her tea and stirring it. She always did have such a sweet tooth.

It's then that he allows himself to fully look at her, to take notice of her overwhelming beauty. Her hair is a little longer than he remembers, the wisps of blonde curls framing her face. Her curls are messy and he can almost carve out the tracks her fingers had taken through them. The bags under her eyes are faint, but there's a glow about her. A good or bad one, he can't tell.

"What are you doing here, Nathan?" she finally asks, tiredly.

He lets the sparks soar through him at the way her mouth forms his name.

He clears his throat, a lie rolling off his tongue because if he's honest, he doesn't know why he's there. "I wanted to stop by to say congratulations."

When she meets his gaze, he almost swallows his tongue. Her eyes were always his favorite thing about her. She holds so much power in one little look that could have him on his knees in seconds. That's never going to change.

"You're not coming."

He thinks he detects a little sadness in her voice but also considers that it might be his brain playing tricks on him.

"I was planning on it." He tries to soften the blow. He really was going to go, but now that he ended up here, he realizes that there's no way he would have survived it. "But I had a work thing come up that I can't get out of."

The warmth of her eyes solidifies into something hard and poisonous on her pretty face. He's seen that look so many times and he's mentally kicking himself for even daring to bring up the one thing that broke them.

He holds his breath, waiting for her to finally crack as he expected as soon as she opened the door, to start screaming at him the way she did before. It would break him even further, but he's willing to take it.

She says nothing and somehow, that's worse.

The sound of the silence between them is what kills him the most. Awkward silence never had a place in their friendship or in their relationship. Conversation always flowed like a calm river, from all the nights they laid under the stars in her parent's backyard to the long drives they took out to the country for no reason.

Hearing her talk and laugh and sigh was what had him falling so helplessly in love with her that it felt like he couldn't breathe at times.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, training his eyes on something other than the haunting look on her face. He should leave.

"I should get going," he says, but doesn't make any effort to move. Haley doesn't respond, but she looks as if she's mulling over something. Her bottom lip is tucked beneath her teeth in that cute way, eyes darting back and forth.

Just as he gathers enough strength to turn around and leave, her mouth mutters the one word he's been dying to hear for months.

"Stay."

~x~

Somewhere between the awkward silence and forced conversations, they made their way to her couch. A bottle of wine had been popped open and glass after glass was filled until only a little remained. The more wine they consumed, the more the awkwardness melted away and was replaced with something so familiar. Something that only existed between the two of them, bonding them together since they were four years old.

Nathan doesn't understand it, but he doesn't want to question it either.

He stares at her, not quite believing that she's really in front of him. He longed for this, spent so many nights wishing that he could just talk to her again like they used to.

Her knees are tucked against her chest as she leans against the couch cushions, her body angled towards him. Her cheeks are rosy, splotches of red covering her neck and her chest. The glossy look in her eye brings him back to all the nights they got drunk on her dad's secret liquor stash or the nights they canceled on their friends to stay in and watch movies with boxes of pizza and wine.

He can almost pretend that nothing has changed, that she's still his.

"Why did we give up on us?"

The question slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. In a blink of an eye, the mood shifts and he wishes he could take the last five seconds back.

"We?" Her voice is sharp, too loud. She lifts her head and narrows her eyes. The blush on her cheeks deepens, this time from anger. "I never gave up on us. That was you."

Her words, no matter how many times he's heard them, cut deep. Because they're true.

He let everything that he spent years and years of his life trying to fight against get to him. He let his father's harsh words, threats, and everything else in between get to him. Break him down. He let the pressure of his family break every pillar of strength he had ever built. He gave up for no other reason than he just couldn't take it anymore.

Haley had always been his escape, the person he went to when things got tough. Even before they were dating, he would tap on her window in the middle of the night and she would open it with weary yet concerned eyes. She wouldn't ask questions and he would fall asleep to the sound of her heartbeat and the feel of her fingers trailing through his hair.

But when it became way too much, when the juvenile attacks followed him into adulthood, he just couldn't take it. He couldn't bring himself to put any of the burden on her, not anymore. Not when she was accepted into grad school and was finally finding solid footing in the life that she wanted.

He couldn't be that selfish, but then again, maybe he was selfish either way.

He started retreating into himself, burying himself into his work because it was the only way he could manage. The harder he worked, the less his dad beat down on him, and the less he had to think about.

They had way too many fights, all of which were starting to sound like the same conversation over and over again. He thought he was protecting her, but he failed to notice how the pain and fight in her eyes weren't because of how heavily he had leaned on her in the past, but because of how he was slipping away.

"I know."

Her eyes widen. She wasn't expecting him to acquiesce so quickly. He likes to fight—something they have in common—but he doesn't have the energy tonight.

He leans forward, placing his half-full wine glass on the wooden chest turned coffee table seated in front of him. He makes sure to keep his eyes locked on hers as he speaks.

"My biggest regret was letting you go. I thought I was protecting you, helping you even. Things were so fucked with my dad and my job and I saw how much stress I was putting on you. I thought it was better for you if I…took you away from all that, if I stopped draining you."

She stares at him, her lips parted and her breathing heavy. The alcohol-induced glaze mixes with unshed tears. He prays to God that she doesn't cry. He wouldn't be able to handle it—not that he's doing a very good job of handling anything.

"You're such a selfish bastard," she mutters breathlessly, shaking her head. "You don't get to decide what's best for me. That was never your choice to make for me."

"I know," he murmurs, ignoring the burning in his chest. "I'm sorry. God, you have no idea how sorry I am. This is something that I will regret for the rest of my life because you're…you're it for me. It's always been you and it will always be you. I'm sorry that I didn't let myself trust in that or you."

The words roll off of him like boulders. He'd rehearsed this speech thousands of times, never believing that he would have a chance to say it. It hurts just as much as he imagined it would, but he never imagined it feeling…. like freedom.

"You can't do this," she croaks, scrambling her way out of the sunken cushion of the couch.

He stands up in defense, almost falling backward at the sudden waves of anger coming off of her. She stalks over to him, stopping close enough to where he can smell the sweet scent of wine on her breath. He may tower over her, but she packs quite a strong punch in that little body of hers.

"You do not get to show up here on the eve of my wedding and tell me all the things I've been begging you to say for the last year and a half." Her finger hits his chest in angry jabs, a few hot tears sliding down her flushed cheeks.

"It's not fair," she cries.

Before he realizes what's happening, she's in his arms. Her head is buried in his chest and his arms are wrapped as tightly around her as possible. He wishes that he could enjoy the feeling of her being in his arms again, but he can't.

She's right, again. He doesn't have the right to show up at her place and tell her all those things.

She looks up at him with muddy eyes and he didn't think it was possible, but he hates himself even more. Why can't he stop hurting her? Is he ever going to stop being selfish?

"I need to hear you say it."

Nathan's furrows his eyebrows. "Say what?"

"That you still love me."

His heart aches at her request and millions of questions fill his mind. But he does what she asks because he never could tell her no.

"I still love you. I never stopped."

What happens next is both the worst and the best thing that could ever happen. Her arms wrap around his neck and her lips are against his. All the air is sucked out of him, his foundation shaking and cracking like a strong earthquake is ripping through him.

He doesn't stop to think about what it all means or how wrong it is. He relishes in her sweet taste and soft lips—the way they meld perfectly with his and ignite something so…strong and potent inside of him. His entire body is buzzing as he grips on to her desperately, scared that she's going to turn ash beneath his fingertips.

He still remembers every minuscule detail about the first time they kissed. They were sixteen and it was the Fourth of July. It was an awkward time for them as their friendship started to take on these weird undertones that they didn't understand at the time. The flirting was growing more intense—the stares lasting a little longer and the touches lingering with a brighter fire.

Fireworks were exploding in the sky all around them as they watched from their secret spot on her roof. He'd turn to ask her a question, only to be surprised by her lips pressing against his. It was neither of their first kiss, but it might as well have been.

The second her lips touched his, everything changed. A warmth spread through him like no other, twisting and pulling until he felt like he couldn't breathe, move, or think. Everything around him melted away into nothing, except for the pleasure and peace she brought him.

That feeling never went away. He felt it every time they kissed, just like he feels it now.

She pulls her mouth away from his but keeps her fingers in his hair.

"We can't do this." Her voice lacks conviction and she doesn't move away from him.

"I know," he says for what feels like the millionth time that night.

He studies her face and he wouldn't be surprised if his heart burst. Her eyes are still closed as she leans her forehead against his, their ragged breathing tangling together. Her plump lips are swollen from their kiss and he's hit with the strong urge to do it again and again. He could spend the rest of his life kissing her.

"Are you in love with him?"

It's a question that has plagued him since the first time he heard about her and Julian. He needs to know no matter how much the answer might break his already shattered heart.

Confusion mars her pretty face as she puts the slightest amount of distance between them. The reminder of her soon-to-be-husband is like a bucket of water being tossed on a wild fire.

"I love him," she answers, but he shakes his head.

"But are you in love with him?"

Her thick eyelashes flutter as she completely detaches herself from him. A cold and dark feeling replaces her warmth. She doesn't look angry, only dazed, like someone hit her reset button and she's still booting up.

"I think you should go."

~x~

The sun is bright, the sky cloudless. Nathan hates it.

His head aches and his eyes are dry and crusted from the lack of sleep and hours he spent crying. His breakdown was the worst kind—the one where the sobs resonate deep in your chest and the cries that leave your mouth are silent chokes. He lost track of time and his sobs didn't subside until the sun started peaking from behind the horizon.

It felt good to let all of his pent-up emotions out, but the residue it left behind was just as agonizing.

He's being unfairly bitter, the self-pity wallowing inside of him thick and heavy. The weight on his chest and the burn in his lungs with every small breath he takes will eventually go away. He won't always be this way. He won't always carry around this disgruntled anger and regret.

Or, at least, that's what he hopes. Does anyone ever truly recover from the love of their live marrying someone else?

If Haley is truly happy with Julian, then he thinks he can eventually learn to be okay with it. Her happiness is the only thing he wanted, even if it didn't always seem that way.

A sharp, quick knock on the front door echoes through his lonely apartment. He doesn't budge. It's most likely Lucas, his brother, coming to beat his ass or yell at him for being such a selfish son of a bitch. He doesn't need to hear it—the voice in his head has already beaten those things into him.

The knocks grow louder, more urgent until it sounds like someone is pounding with the palm of their hands. The noise makes the pounding of his head more intense, squeezing and pushing until it feels like it might explode. Growing aggravated, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and draws a pair of dirty jeans up his legs. He doesn't bother buttoning them or putting a shirt on.

"For fuck sakes, I'm coming!" he barks, running a hand over the mess of his hair.

When he opens the door, it's not Lucas standing there. The scene in front of him is straight out of every bad rom-com ever written, but it restores a little light in him.

Haley James is standing in front of him in her wedding dress. Even with her tear-stained and make-up streaked face, she's a breathtaking sight, one that has his heart constricting.

Her dress is as simple and elegant as he knew it would be. The sweetheart neckline is embedded with tiny diamonds that sparkle in the sunlight, plunging into a silk skirt that touches the concrete. For a short second, he lets himself imagine that she put that dress on for him, not Julian.

Looking over her shoulder, he sees Brooke Davis, a college friend, pulling out of his driveway. They meet eyes for a brief second and she gives him a knowing smile.

When he meets her beseeching gaze, pain rips through him. It's a new kind of pain that he's not sure he's ever felt before. He welcomes it, lets it douse the burning anger and regret inside of him.

Somehow, he knows what she's going to say before she says it and the world stops spinning.

"I couldn't do it."