the song is by Rascal Flatts. and this oneshot is for Marni. i really hope that you (and everyone else) likes it. i'm not entirely happy with the ending but i like it so i decided to keep it.
How Strong Are You Now
When she told you goodbye
You didn't flinch
When she looked back
You didn't even budge an inch
You stood there like stone
But now that she's gone
He watched her long, straight, brown hair flow in the wind as she walked away from him. Marni, his girlfriend of two years had just broken up with him. “I can’t take this anymore Joe. I love you but I can’t deal with this right now. I’m sorry.” Those were her words. The words that he knew were going to come sooner or later, especially since he had been dodging her calls as of late. He wasn’t even sure why he was doing it, but he couldn’t seem to stop no matter how hard he tried.
She took one glance back at him before she left the park they were at for good. It appeared that Joe almost didn’t hear her words. When she told him that it was over, he didn’t flinch. To her, it seemed like he wasn’t surprised at all. Then with the quick glance back at him, she saw that he hadn’t moved and there was still no readable expression on his face. It broke her heart even more knowing that he didn’t care as much as she thought he had.
How strong are you now
Without her around
You can't even keep one little bitty tear
From fallin' down
Tell me how strong are you know
After another two hours, it had finally hit Joe. Her words kept echoing in his mind. “I love you but I can’t deal with this right now. I’m sorry,” and every time that they replayed, they broke his heart more and more each time. Plus the look in her green eyes when she had looked back before finally walking out of his life. She had looked so hurt. It took him a few moments to realize that he was crying. He had never cried after a girl broke up with him before. But then again this wasn’t just any girl, it was Marni. His best friend for years before she was his girlfriend of two.
The random girl that could keep up with his boundless energy at times. The one that was never afraid to speak her mind. Who always embarrassed herself but was always to laugh it off no matter how bad it was. The girl who had captured his heart and had held it for much longer than the two years that they were an actual couple.
Before she left you told yourself
It can't hurt that much
Now you're doubled over
Like you took a punch
No, she ain't coming back
Tell me how much can you take of that
How strong are you now
Without her around
You can't even keep one little bitty tear
From fallin' down
Tell me how strong are you know
Before he had met her in the park that day, he had told himself that if she broke it off, it wouldn’t hurt that bad. It would just be like every other break-up he had gone through. Kind of painful at first but then would slowly get better with each day. He was an idiot for ever believing that would be true.
It was two weeks after the split and he was curled up on his bed, holding his stomach like he had been punched. That was how bad the pain was. It hadn’t been getting better and wasn’t just ‘kind of’ painful. This time is was the most horrible pain he had ever been in and every time he saw that picture of the two of them together on their one year anniversary, it made him hurt and cry even more.
What's that rule you live by
A tough guys never cry
How strong are you now
Without her around
You can’t even keep one little bitty tear
From fallin’ down
Tell me how strong
Tell me how strong are you now - yeah
How strong are you now -oh oh
What’s that rule you live by
You say tough guys never cry
But how strong are you now
It was six months later and Joe was slowly getting better. It still hurt every time that he thought about her or heard her name. Considering that she was still friends with his brothers, it seemed like he always heard her name. After this experience though, he had totally changed the rule that he had once thought was true. “Tough guys never cry.” He had thought of himself as somewhat tough at one point, but he knew now that even tough guys cry.
He hadn’t seen her since that day. No matter how much he missed her, he tried his best to hide it whenever one of his brothers got to see her. He knew that she was never going to come back to him, not after the way he had treated her towards the end of their relationship. The tough thing for him to grasp however, was that not only had he screwed up one of the best relationships he had ever had, he had also lost one of his best friends in the process. That may have been the part that hurt him the most.
