I've Waited All My Life (Brian Dales Fan Fic)

Begin Again

Four Years Later…

Jacky

“What are we gonna do for your birthday?” Jackie asked as we walked into the restaurant we had chosen for lunch. My birthday was in two days and I would be nineteen. My boyfriend, Jake, said he had a ‘surprise’ for me. I really had grown to hate surprises.

“I don’t know. Jake told me had some surprise for me,” I replied with a shrug. To be honest, I didn’t really want to do anything with Jake. Our relationship kind of seemed to be falling apart lately. All we seemed to lately was fight, but I didn’t have the heart to breakup with him. I loved him, I did, but I wasn’t happy.

“Oh, yeah, he told me about that,” she told me. Jackie didn’t really know all about what was had been happening with Jake. She knew we had been going through a ‘rough patch’ as she put it, but she didn’t know how rough this patch really was.

We were then seated by a waitress and ordered. We continued to talk about my birthday until I heard the door open. As I glanced up, my heart sunk. In walked five people, but one was all too familiar to me. He had light brown and amazing green eyes. I hadn’t seen him since that night four years ago; that night he had pretty much broken my heart.

As his eyes traveled around the room, they met with mine. I quickly looked down at my plate of food. From what I saw before I looked away, he obviously recognized me. “What?” Jackie questioned when she saw my weird behavior.

“Brian,” I replied in a whisper. She gave me a confused looked, but glanced over her shoulder at the group, which was not being seating. The waitress led them to the booth in back of ours. Of course Brian had to sit facing me, too. 

I tried my best to keep him out of my mind as Jackie rambled on about my birthday, but it was hard to do. After the waitress to their orders, he did something I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t. He stood up from his table and walked the few feet over to where Jackie and I were sitting.

“I’ll be in the bathroom if you need,” Jackie announced, getting up from the booth. As she walked away, I tried sending her a mental message to get her ass back over. Why the hell would she leave me alone with him?

“Hi,” he greeted, taking Jackie’s seat. What was I suppose to even say to him? I hadn’t seen him in so long and I had actually almost completely forgot about him.

“Hi,” I responded softly. I could feel my palms getting sweaty and my mind was racing. I had told myself for so long that I never wanted to see him again and now, here he was in front of me and I was getting all nervous again.

“So, uh, how have you been?” he asked, playing with the salt and pepper shakers. I’m not sure if I had ever been apart of such an awkward conversation before.

“Not too bad. How about you?” I responded. I was kind of hoping that John or Josh or somebody would call him back to their table, but it didn’t happen.

“Pretty good,” he answered with a shrug. We sat in silence for the next few moments until he spoke up again. “I’m sorry about what I told you before,” he whispered. To be honest, I couldn’t believe that he remember what he had said all those years ago.

“It’s ok, Brian. It doesn’t matter anymore. It was a long time ago,” I replied. I had been telling myself that it ‘didn’t matter’ for four years and it really hadn’t worked too well, but I couldn’t let him know that.

“It does matter. I missed you a lot and if I hadn’t been so stupid we could’ve kept in touch,” he argued with a sigh. It was obvious that he regretted yelling at me at the concert all those years ago.

“Can I just ask why you pushed me away?” I questioned. That had been the question I had wanted to ask him for so long, but never had the chance to.

“Because… because I liked you, but I knew I really couldn’t like you because you were so young and I…I was kinda afraid that if we were friends, I’d end up… falling for you,” he stammered. So, he had liked me. I had convinced myself that he couldn’t like me, but it looked like I was wrong.

“I liked you, too,” I replied softly. It felt weird to admit it after all this time. Looking at him again brought back all those old feelings, too. If he asked me out right now, I knew I’d say yes without a second thought; without thinking about the fact that I was in a relationship.

We again fell into silence, both of us avoiding eye contact. I was hoping Jackie would come back soon. I needed a bit of moral support right now.

“Isn’t your birthday coming up soon?” he asked suddenly. I couldn’t believe he actually remembered when my birthday was. I couldn’t even remember telling him when it was.

“Yeah, in two weeks,” I replied. I was a bit confused to why he cared, but at least it was making this situation a bit less awkward.

“We’re gonna be a in town for the next few days. We should celebrate together,” he suggested. A grin appeared on my face as soon as the words left his mouth. Celebrating with Brian sounded a lot better than whatever surprise Jake had planned for me.

“That sounds awesome,” I replied. He then put his number into my phone so I could text him my address later and went back to his table. I was now honestly excited for my birthday, but now I had to make up so excuse for Jake.