Surrounded

Chapter 17

Sapphire was on her second cookies and cream milkshake, which I thought was a revelation at considering she doesn't go near calories on her daily routine. "I don't freaking get this guy, what a jerk." She almost choked while sipping and ranting.

I had been nodding and agreeing with her for the past half an hour; she was going on and on about what happened and quite frankly, I couldn't grasp anything. Whenever Sapphire got mad about something, especially something she was passionate about say Nick, she would go into some sort of mind-verbal freak out where her brain and mouth lose WiFi connection. Thus, Sapphire becomes a creature from another planet - some sort of alien, if you may.

However this time it seemed different. She genuinely looked upset, and the typical Sapphire would have a bitch-out and would eventually calm herself without anyone needed. Nick truly was everything to her but a relationship will never work if both parties want their say to be followed regardless. They don't compromise.

"Okay, okay. Stop."

"What?" She looked at me, perplexed. It was as if I was some statue to her and the movement of my lips took her into surprise, almost telling me that it wasn't my turn to share my opinion.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I was getting really irritated.

"Damn, girl. You're slow," she somewhat smirked. I think she figured out that she had lost me three train stations ago. "Well, he's being insane. Everything he orders, he demands to be followed. I can't go on like this anymore. Lately he's been so negative, even the way he looks at me. It's as if I'm causing him some sort of rash or whatever. I don't even think he's into us anymore. This month for instance - I would tell him that I love him and he'd scoff or laugh. He even tilts his phone nowadays and --"

"Wait huh?" She had never told me anything concerning all of this, like ever.

"Yeah, he actually tilts his phone. Yesterday I brought up the college situation and he was like it's not like you didn't know this would happen, so I got my purse and ditched him at Fern's Pub. Today I brought it up, and he seemed like he didn't even care and we had a complete meltdown..." She started nibbling on the white-chocolate and blueberry cookie she ordered, if the milkshakes weren't enough already.

"So who broke up with who?" I frowned. Pam, the waitress, passed by us and without even recognising I was there she asked if Sapphire needed anything else. "No thanks. Maybe a frappucino for Arry? Strawberry Puff?" She winks. I nodded and with that, Pam disappeared into the kitchen.

"I did, duh. I think at one point his ego dropped; he got somewhat teary-eyed." It sucked to see her that way. You'd think that a couple like them two would actually last. I guess not, huh.

I noticed that Lars had briskly walked in as I was sitting facing the doorway, while Sapphire clueless was facing me on the other end staring at the bright blue walls of the shack. He gave me an eye and just shook his head in disagreement. He probably knew what she was like and wanted to be spared the migraine which was Sapphire. By that, he stormed out.

"What's going to happen now then?" I tried patting her hand but I'm pretty sure it didn't make any difference. She seemed a little drifted; lost in her own world. The world in which Nick had just backed out of.

She kind of slummed her shoulders a bit and played with the empty milkshake glass in front of her, turning it on it's own base.

"Honestly I have no idea. I'll just lay low for a while I guess? Isn't that what you do after a break up?"

I couldn't really blame her. I couldn't look at her in the eye and say something like forget about it and move the fuck on because it was Nick, after all he was home for a very long time.

He was the person she could turn to when everything got so hazy. He was clarity to her yet just like that, he decided to stop being that guy for her. How do you decide such a thing? Do you wake up one day and say fuck this crap I don't need this ..? How do you decide that your special someone isn't so special anymore? All of those amazing moments together; all of the hard times that you had overcome together as time went on. The smile - the twinkle in the eye. The feeling you would always get after looking into your someone's eye. How? How do you just let everything go? It astonishes me.

I don't think I can say that I've experienced it but I've seen it happen loads of times, especially with my mother. It was the disappointment that my father had left behind that really stuck on. Seeing the person you love evolving into something so foreign, day by day - second by second while simultaneously hurting her must've been torture. Basically, hot and cold all the time. It ruined my mother for a few years, to be truly honest.

Her home turned on her. That's sad. I used to think that 'home' was a place but come to think of it, home can be found in a person, too. Being able to hug a person and feel so connected that it's almost like the heartbeat's in sync -- what I've read in books and watched in movies.

"Arielle?" She was glaring at me now. "You do realize you're daydreaming, right?"

Looking up, I smiled at her. "I was only thinking of what to say...
I'm trying to put myself in your shoes." She looked partially confused as she frowned at me, yet she didn't say anything.

"It's best if maybe you give him a few days so he can think things through which could be rad for you, too... if after, you feel hesitant I suggest you reach out for him."

Taking a seat on the porch steps, I checked my phone - it was approximately eight in the evening. The once apricot-colored, lilac sky commuted, and its substitute became an extensive black mass consuming Paverlawn with flecks of beaming stars. Nights like this have always radiated a certain mood on me. It was as if I was in a world of my own.

I hadn't seen Tyler in a while now.

"I wonder if he's doing alright ..." I thought.