Trust (Cryaotic/Reader)

You're not sure who to blame anymore.


You look at him, drinking in every feature and flaw on his face. You match it with the rest of his body that sits before you. He's not what you expected - which was, in short, nothing at all. To you, he had been a sentient voice. You hadn't cared what he looked like. You wondered, but you never cared. It never mattered.


But you knew this was important. You knew this revealing was special, and that you were one of the few that got to see his face. To examine it. To know.


He trusted you. This was the ultimate form of his trust. And he wanted you, too. He wanted you to know that he trusted you enough not only to ask for something more than just friendship, but also to show you who he really was.


You weren't sure what to think. Because he trusted you so deeply with a secret kept from the public eye, and heart tucked away only for the private.


And you, you barely trusted him at all. And for that, you're not sure who to blame anymore.


Your mother, for being a raging alcoholic albeit the fact she was a lightweight. Not seriously neglectful, but you raised yourself to be independent until you couldn't handle the responsibility anymore. You sought a therapist, and got one. They helped you move out.


Your six-month girlfriend, who taught you not only what love was, but what it felt like to be unrequited. She gave you a taste of the world beyond the social standards of relationships, and made you wonder if simple attraction could be confused as love, or if it really did run out.


Your best friend of seven years, whom you had known since second grade, then ditched you as a freshmen of high school. He never told you goodbye before you moved, too scared that he would break down and kiss you. That would mean cheating on his girlfriend - and you knew he really loved her - but you still miss him.


Your four pairs of grandparents, whom you only saw when you were younger, then became a distant relation of the past. They don’t send you holiday cards. They don’t leave Happy Birthday statuses on your Facebook timeline. You never hear anything from them anymore.


Your first grade best friend, who you taught you how to blow bubbles in bubblegum. The first person you ever treated equal, rather than childishly bossed around. She moved to Ohio without saying anything. After days of her missing, your stepmother was the only one to tell you what happened.


Or yourself, for letting it all affect you. After years of flying back and forth to please each side of your family, you became to familiar with the harsh tensing in your chest and clench of your gut. You learned over time how to stuff the negative feelings down, but never how to fully let them go. To this day, you still cry over the fact that you miss your mother and how you haven't seen a distant friend in two years.


To say the least, you had trust issues. Minor friendships where one couldn't bother to show his face, you could handle that. You liked secrets because secrets meant there was more to know - and if there was more to know? That would mean you weren't fully connected. Because the trust wasn't there. No connection meant no attachment.


That’s how the system in your head ran.


But, as you looked at him and grasped his hands, you doubted your system. You knew how stupid it was, how unreasonable. You knew it was unhealthy to want to live a life where you considered yourself alone and unattached to anyone and anything.


So, you cried. As you stared him straight in the eye, you let your lips curve into a frown, tears slipping around your cheekbones and trailing down your jaw. His features contorted into something ugly, concerned for your sudden breakdown.


But you just cried - for your mother, for your ex-girlfriend, for your grandfathers and grandmothers, for your two best friends, and especially for yourself. Because you were so hideously broken and twisted in the head, and he was so perfect. And yet, he wanted you.


He wanted you so much that he gave up his secret.


“You're beautiful,” you told him, grasping his cheeks as you continued to cry.


And he cried, too.