Old Love

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Summary: But now he’s gone and it’s Martin Truex Jr, the one man show.

AUTHOR: Mick
EMAIL: mick@cryptoffic.com
RATING: R
CHARACTER: Martin Truex Jr, Martin POV
WORD COUNT: 1,796
DISCLAIMER: If I owned them I’d be too busy to write this stuff. Just fiction, folks! I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This one came out of nowhere while I was listening to some John Mayer/Brad Paisley collaborations from CMT’s Crossroads series.
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Little red numbers floating in the air beside the bed read 3:17am. It doesn’t seem like that much time has passed, but the numbers don’t lie. Four hours of lying in the same place, unmoving, with nothing to show for it but bloodshot eyes and a hand with pins and needles from resting on it for too long. 3:18 now, another minute wasted. Tick, tick, tick. Time slipping by, unable to be stopped. So tired, so restless, so alone. Loneliness, the reason behind it all. The empty space on the bed where another body used to lie. Vacant for what seems like forever, when it feels like just hours ago the void there was filled by the warmth of another. Not anymore, though. Now it’s just empty. Alone. Cold.

Eyes squeeze shut tight in a vain attempt to fall asleep, but it’s no use. Closing my eyes just brings on memories of what used to be. Suddenly the bed doesn’t feel so cold, the empty space doesn’t feel so empty. The body returns, if only for a moment, but then like a flash it’s gone again. The arm wrapped so snuggly around my torso disappears, the even breathing on my neck halted in an instant, the heartbeat against my back gone in one quick guh-gung. And it brings more tears to those bloodshot eyes, this time squeezing closed in an attempt to make them stop, but it’s no use. No use at all. What once was there is gone forever and the memories are nothing but a cruel reminder of that fact.

More time passes by and now it’s nearly four in the morning. Five hours of lying in bed without a wink of sleep, the sunrise looming just around the corner. And when it rises I’ll have no choice but to push myself up out of bed and get ready for the day. A day filled with people and obligations and…and him. The one who’s not in my bed anymore because he’s found someone better. Someone without so much baggage, so many needs. It kills me that I can’t let go. It’s been months, but still I hold onto him like he’s the only thing keeping me alive. I know better. I know he’s not coming back and I need to move on and that just makes it worse. Get so mad at myself for clinging so tightly to air.

I want to forget. I want to get over this and move on with my life, but it hurts so bad. It’s like there’s this constant knife in my heart and it won’t go away. If I try to pull it out it just hurts twice as much. There’s nothing I can do to make the bleeding stop, nothing will make the pain disappear, or even dissipate just the tiniest bit. And seeing him…god, it kills me inside to see him walking through the coach lot and hanging out in the garage like nothing’s wrong. Although, I guess for him nothing really is wrong. He got what he wanted. I’m the one that was left here alone with the empty space in my bed.

Seems like only yesterday I was enough for him. It was the two of us, in it together, through thick and thin. We’d last forever, it’d always be only us and that was all we needed. The Juniors, best buds, Posse members. MT and June, the unstoppable pair. But now he’s gone and it’s Martin Truex Jr, the one man show. Not much of a show, but still. I put it on as best as I can. Fake smiles for the cameras, do my interviews and appearances like a good little driver, cling to Sherry like I really love her. Even she can’t stand me anymore. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember, but even she can’t take much more of my moping and sobbing over him.

Why? It’s all I keep asking myself. Why? Why did he leave? Why’d he have to go and find someone else? Why wasn’t I enough for him anymore? Did I do something wrong? Did I not say something right? What happened?

Of course, I’m a fool for even having to ask any of that. It’s not what I did or didn’t do. It’s just who he is. For Junior, love is nothing but a myth. It’s this thing people say they’re in so they can get laid without guilt. Three little words and suddenly it’s okay to get your dick sucked or fuck another guy through the mattress. As long as you say the words, you can do it all without regret. Because if you say it, surely you mean it and then you can get away with anything. You’ll always have someone waiting and willing to spread their legs for you at the drop of a hat. You’ll always have a warm body in the bed with you. If you say it, even if you don’t mean it, it still gives that other person a glimmer of hope that maybe someday you’ll change and mean it when you say it and that you’ll suddenly want a lifelong relationship, someone to spend the rest of your days with.

What an idiot I am for even considering the thought that he might change. For thinking for even one instant that when he said it he meant it. I know damn well that Dale Earnhardt Jr is incapable of love. It’s just…genetically imbedded in him to avoid falling for someone. Even when he gives you all the affection in the world, showers you with gifts and sentiments, holds your hand when he’s sure no one’s looking…it’s just an act. He’s just in it for the sex, the companionship. It never goes deeper than that. Friends with benefits, that’s all any of us ever really are to him. I knew all that before I got into bed with him. I’d seen him go through one person after another, watched him jump from bed to bed, girl to guy to girl. Like it was a game. How many people can I fuck this weekend?

Then why the hell does it hurt so much knowing he used me like he used all of them? Because I thought for some reason that maybe it was different this time around. That because we were friends maybe he cared for me deeper than he did them. So I opened myself up, let him in, held him close. Gave him my heart, so that when he dropped me like he did all the others, it was his to break. And god, did he ever break it. Shattered into millions of little pieces on the floor of his house. Right in the middle of the kitchen while the sun was shining in through the bay windows, the spring breeze fluttering through the curtains Kelley had picked out and asked me to hang up for him.

I thought it was different with me. I was wrong. Far wrong. More wrong than I’d ever been about anything in my life. Idiot. Fool. Jackass. No amount of self-deprecation will ever be enough to fully express how angry I am at myself for letting him do this to me. I knew better. I knew this would happen. And yet, I still can’t let go. Every time the phone rings, every time someone knocks on my door, every time I get an email or a text message, my heart skips a beat. A tiny glimmer of hope passes through my mind that it might be him. Maybe he wants me back. Maybe he wants to try again, make this work, want me for more than just the physical connection. And every time my heart sinks just a little lower into my stomach when that doesn’t happen. I need to get over this. I need to move on.

But I can’t. I held on too tight. And now I’m alone, lying in my bed wide awake at nearly five in the morning while the sun starts to creep up over the horizon. Another sleepless, lonely, heart broken night without him.

And where is he?

Exactly where he wants to be. The coach four or five over from my own. Talk about salt in the wound. I’m surprised I can’t hear them from here. Junior’s never been one to stifle himself. If he’s enjoying what you’re doing to him, you’ll know. The whole damn county will know. I’m surprised I can’t hear him screaming his name, moaning in ecstasy as he takes him again and again. Because that’s what Junior does. It’s never just one round. He’s not satisfied unless there’s at least three or four. And that’s not even counting foreplay and oral. Because to Junior, oral sex is a part of the food pyramid. Loves getting his dick sucked just as much as he enjoys sucking someone else’s. He’s probably got his fingers tangled in his hair right now, pulling hard on it like he used to do to mine. Screaming his name, bucking his hips, begging him to make him come.

“Kevin, god Kevin. Feels so good, baby. Just a little harder, almost there…”

Kevin Harvick. Should have seen that one coming. They spend more time together than he and I ever did. Always playing around, cracking jokes, pranking one another. The hugs that last just a little too long, touches and looks that linger just a bit more than they should. He devours Kevin when he looks at him. Drinks in every last drop of him, and I’ll be damned if you can’t see Kevin doing the same damn thing. Undressing one another with their eyes, right out in the open where anyone could see the looks they throw at one another. It makes me so jealous it hurts. We were never like that. We were never as reckless as those two are. Were never as hasty and adventurous and uncaring as they are.

And, really, they’re perfect for one another. Junior doesn’t want to get attached and Kevin can’t. No, he’s got his little wifey at home waiting for him. Curled up in bed all by her lonesome just like I am, waiting for someone that’ll never really be there. I sympathize with her. I know what it feels like to stare at the clock with bloodshot eyes, night after night, wishing and hoping and praying that the one you love will come back to you.

But we both know that no matter how hard you cling to that old love, it’ll never be yours again.

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Mick - mick@cryptoffic.com