<br/>Nah, she didn’t believe for one second that Ryan knew what she was ‘trying to do’. He had no fucking clue!<i>You're so desperate for attention, to be the center of the world</i>, “Yours!” She shrilled, unaware that her voice had risen enough to garner the attention of those closest to them. Mau had never played coy. Never tried to beat around the bush, and didn’t know the first thing about being subtle which is why she so unabashedly declared the only universe she wanted to be the center of was<b>his</b>! Of all her faults and Lord knew there were plenty, she was nothing if not honest. Even if it were to a devastating fault. But this was bound to happen right? Try as she might to make like she could behave in the same ol’ ways she always had before his running away, the onslaught of emotions and bitter, old feelings that had been lying dormant for five years were beginning to fester like an infection under the skin. Eroding her brain and splintering off in to her heart.<br/><br/>Maureen had rehearsed over and over and<i>fucking over</i>, time and time<i>and time </i>again, what she would say to him if Ryan ever showed his face back around there -- of course that got shot to hell when she fell victim to her impulses. But! She’d have told him how his leaving, without a word no less, had gutted her. And that she had deserved better than what he gave! More! It didn’t matter what he said to her or anyone else, Maureen hadn’t<b>just</b>been like the other girls. Ryan hadn’t charmed the panties right off of her a couple times in high school only to never call afterwards. She wasn’t a fatal attraction he just couldn’t shake! She'd suck his cock in that very both in the back corner of that very bar when he twirled her hair and asked her to. A favorite pastime was him eating her out on a sofa somewhere after an after party. Spinning circles on his shoulders at the fairgrounds when she slipped molly in to their lemonades. He’s the one that kept her from<i><b> losing her fucking mind </b></i>when she found her mothers overdosed, decomposing corpse in the hell-hot-summer heat of an apartment bedroom with no air conditioner - the rancid odor she could still smell to this very day on one of the sporaidc occasions she thought about that selfish junkie whore.<br/><br/>For as many times as he went out of his way to sardonically throw it in her face she was<i>messed</i>up and useless, all because she made him mad? There were a dozen more of his reassurances that she wasn’t only some sick, intolerable bitch. He left his window unlocked so she could climb the gutter, sneak through it, and it was<i>him</i>that threw back that green plaid quilt to let her slip in beside him and sleep to avoid whatever pedophile foster fuck who’s care she was in at the time. Bruised arms and swollen hearts. Riskey fucking and violent tempers. She took his berserk rancor and loved him anyways. Never expected, or even<i>wanted</i>, him to change. Maureen accepted him for the cruel boy he could be because sometimes he shown up with a daisy in his hand when nobody but her was looking.<br/><br/><i><b>They</b></i>were messed up.<br/>She had been okay with that.<br/>And he just.. Left her there.<br/>That was her fucking problem!<br/><br/><i>...you'd do anything for me to act like I care about you. </i><br/><br/>The sneer on her own mouth fell away, those frown lines gone cause her face fell too. She should’ve known better though, and it shouldn’t have came as no surprise. Ryan always did have a way of knowing all her wounds and rubbing the coarsest of salts in them. But what he spat in her face next;<i>And since you can't get <b>me</b> to <b>love you</b>, you have to settle for anger</i>- Mau audibly gasped. Right hand coming up to splay over that pendant as if his poisonous words made her physically hurt, right there, and that’s because they did. Her head swiveled wildly in a violent shake and her hands trembled with the resistance to cover her ears. She didn’t wanna hear anything else! Why’d he have to hit so goddamned low? And no, she hadn’t considered her own malice to be the provocation. Ryan knew when she was bluffing, but Mau couldn’t say the same. He was always able to call her on her own, but that door didn't go both ways.<br/><br/>When he helped himself behind the bar for a drink, it was Mau that stood like the<i><b>shellshocked motherfucker </b></i>she mentally claimed him to be; not looking at him, but not quite looking away either. Her throat visibly worked to swallow, but it’d proven too dry, and what she had to focus on the most was maintaining her ability to breathe. Pulse pumped too fast, chest rising and caving in quick, shallow intakes of air she couldn’t seem to get enough of and her face was in flames.<br/><br/><i>You want to know how much I value you...</i><br/><br/>Was there another leak in the roof? A drop of water splashed her cheek, startling her, and she reached up to wipe it away. But then there was another, and then another, and then…<i><b>fuck</b></i>… she was crying! And rather than continue to what she felt like was drown, Mau desperately swam in search for that anger again to use it as a life raft. When she found it, all of her five foot nothing moved through the waist high swinging door to join him behind that bar, “You’s a fucking liar, Ryan!”<i> Please be a fucking liar....</i><br/><br/>Had to laugh while she said it so the words weren’t broken by the impending sob that was damn near blocking her airway, “Leave!” Mau moved for him, rearing an arm back with every intention of slamming the palm of her hand in to the bottom of Ryan’s glass when it was at his mouth. Wanting it to break off in to shards and cut him the fuck up like the things he said did to her. At least if she did manage it? Ryan might bleed, but he’d heal. More than she could say for herself.<br/>What was so wrong with missing him?<br/>What was so bad about loving him?<br/>What was the harm in needing, with what Mau would consider every fiber of her being,..<br/>For Ryan to feel some<i>fraction</i>of those things for her too?<br/><br/>Better yet -- why couldn’t he just lie to her.