His lips were so smooth, soft like velvet. Caressing my own, they were hot, so hot and passionate. Heat scorching like free-falling wild fire embers, heat that felt so good, so very good. Lean muscles rippled beneath my traveling hands, tense and bundled with want, heating up with desire. He wanted me, he wanted me.

I wanted him - I loved him.

With that thought, my eyes fluttered open, and every muscle in my body froze. Wrong. This was wrong. This was so wrong. The eyes looking back at me were blue. A beautiful blue, a very light blue, like the sky looks when the sun is out and everything is happy. A blue like the glaciers, like ice that is so deep it has surpassed transparent, surpassed white, and turned into a blue so brilliant that it shamed every color in every painting you've ever seen. Beautiful, sweet eyes.

But they were wrong. They were not the brown eyes that I wanted. Brown laden with hint of green, sometimes like a forest floor and sometimes like thick, sweet, gooey, liquid chocolate. They did not belong to the boy that I loved.

Fuck.

The boy in front of me sighed into my mouth, reluctantly untangling his fingers from my hair and easing back. I did not mean to make those sky eyes sad - I didn't mean to, I didn't want to.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

"Chels..." he breathed quietly, reaching a gentle hand over to tuck an unruly strand of hair back into place, his chest still heaving. My jaw clenched as I felt it begin to quiver, and I was forced to shut my eyes against my tears. Who was I to hurt this boy? Someone so kind and gentle, someone so understanding - someone who deserved someone so much better than me.

"You thought I was him." How do you answer a question that is a statement? The tears began leaking, leaving treacherous little trails on my cheeks, and I clenched my eyes shut even tighter. A gentle hand kept stroking my hair, so softly, and I somehow ended up back into Matthew's strong arms, my face buried into his chest and my body wracking with sobs.

Crying had had its fair share of time with me over the years. Normally in dark, secluded corners in the middle of the night, where no one could witness my weakness. It could normally be held at bay, the tears shoved into a quiet little place until it was safe and lonely enough to let them out.

But lately, not a damn thing in this world could hold these tears back.

The sobs were so raw, even to my own ears. Raw and filled with unrestrained heartbreak. They left my body shuddering and trembling, stole the breath from my lungs. It hurt to breathe - it hurt to live. They were the kind of sobs that hurt your throat and your head and came from the very, innermost core of your heart.

They left me gasping with breath and sure that my stomach was going to end up in the toilet very soon.

Matthew, sweet Matthew, with those blue eyes, just held me. He tried to hold me together as the sobs tried to rip me to pieces. I hated when it felt like this - I hated having to face the pain that stayed hidden inside of me. Because it was still fresh and brutal, set on shattering every bit of my being. I hated forcing Matthew to witness the ugliest and weakest side of me.

"I'm sorry, Matt, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I sobbed through my tears. The salty water was stinging my eyes and soaking his shirt, and the sound of my sobs filled the room. So harsh and guttural - so sickening.

"Shh," he murmured, pulling me in tighter and rocking softly back and forth. "Shh, it's okay, it's alright. I've got you, it's alright..."

I don't know how long we stayed like that - it felt like an eternity and felt like a moment. Slowly, my sobs subsided into hiccups, and the tears surrendered quietly, silently streaming down my face and dripping off of my nose. Matt held me all the while, slowly rocking me, his strong, slender hand stroking my hair. I let out a trembling sigh, and relinquished my iron grip on his t-shirt.

I couldn't bring myself to let go completely.

Soft lips pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, a consolation that nothing else in this world could give me. I sat back a little, not leaving the encirclement of his arms, only moving to see his face. Those blue eyes gazed at me, so sad and steady and beautiful. What was I doing, hurting this boy like this?

He lifted his hand to my face and used his thumb to push away my tears. Everything about him was so gentle, such a contrast to the turmoil that filled my mind. Glacier eyes carefully watched me as I regarded his face, my breath still hitching and my body trembling.

My thoughts were a dizzying blur - they always were when I fell into this state. Matthew remained a constant, though, steady and unwavering, a gentle figure that calmly held me as I led him through hell.

His face was delicate, angles and cheekbones, and his skin was a shade darker than you'd expect - it was a light tan, not the pallor that should go with his intense eyes and thick black hair. It was a face that slowed my heartbeat and my breathing, one that every muscle in my body responded to, relaxing and returning to comfort.

He did not have chocolate eyes or wood-brown hair or a slow smirk. He was not the boy that I was in love with.

I brought a trembling hand to his face, my fingertips tracing along his jaw line before being cupped and captured by his own fingers, held captive against his cheek. The entire time, his eyes never left my face.

Mascara lines and blotchy red and deathly white likely covered my face. I was so ashamed. So ashamed of falling apart and bringing a tiny piece of his heart with me. Of allowing him to hold me together. Disgust filled my blood, and I wondered again at how steadily his eyes watched me. Why did he not look away? Why did he not walk out and leave me behind? He should, he should.

"Why do you put up with me?" I murmured thickly, my voice cracking and shattering the silence. He pressed my hand closer to his face.

"Because this isn't you," he answered without hesitation. A tiny smile pulled at his lips. "Because I know what a strong person you are, no matter what you think. Because I know that one day, this will all be over, and you'll be okay again. Because I want to be the one that makes you smile. Because I think that you're the most beautiful girl in the world, and you're worth any wait I have to go through. I don't mind being the one you lean on."

The words spilling so honestly from his lips nearly brought me to tears again. That was the thing with Matt - everything he said was so honest, that you couldn't doubt him if you tried, no matter how ludacris it seemed.

He was not the boy that I was in love with. But he was the boy that I was falling in love with.

I was slowly seeing that. My vision had been clouded by the other one, the first one to ever hold my heart. But now, here, wrapped so closely to Matt and his eyes of ice and his gentle hands, I was struck, struck with the truth that had been creeping up on me for months.

He was not just a comfort. He was not a rebound. He was not someone that I was unfairly clinging to. I did not keep coming to him because he was my medicine - I came to him because he was a beautiful creature, one so foreign to me and yet so familiar. He may not have held my whole heart, but he had picked up all the pieces, and was cradling them gently and patiently until he could glue them all back together.

"Matt..." I breathed. Could he sense it? Did he know what I'd just realized? Did he feel the difference in the air that I did? But his eyes held no change in expression, just regarded me softly, waiting. "Matthew," I murmured again, swallowing.

There it was. A shift in his eyes - he'd heard something in my voice, and looked usurely at me now.

"I'm going to try something," I said. I leaned forward slowly, until my nose brushed against his. His breath caught. The last thing I saw before my eyes fluttered closed were beautiful blue eyes, ones of the purest of ice and sky and water. Our lips connected in the sweetest of butterfly kisses, only brushing against each other, so light and careful. I pressed a little closer, and our lips molded together. He seemed too scared to move, too afraid of shattering the moment.

But as he pulled me close, I wanted to tell him not to worry. This time, I was not kissing the other one. I was kissing Matt.