One Division

Chapter Four - Gone, Gone

Chapter Four - Gone, Gone

***

And I’ll be gone, gone tonight. The ground beneath my feet is open wide.

***

Happy was decidedly unhappy at the moment. Lo was dragging her about like a rag doll, and all Happy could do was stay limp and hang on for the ride, hoping not to hit anything sharp or hard along the way.

“I mean I have a boyfriend! Isn’t that the least slutty thing I could do?” Lo fumed, but Happy had tuned out the angry rant, and didn’t respond, stumbling in a daze after the taller girl.

Happy’s mind was still in a sorry state after seeing Zayn. It was as though everything had fallen apart and come together in one moment, and Happy had not enjoyed the feeling. Looking into Zayn’s honey brown eyes was like coming home, like being enveloped I n his love and warmth all over again – his eyes had always been her favorite part of him – but now, when there was no warmth or love to be found in their depths, it felt off. Even though his gaze felt like coming home, Happy just had to constantly remind herself that it wasn’t.

Unheeded, a memory flashed in her mind of the time she’d moved when she was younger. It wasn’t anything special, just a bigger house in town, but for a year or so, she hadn’t called it home. The old house was still home. And every time she drove past it, she felt a pang of loss when they did not stop. But the year passed, and  the new house was home, the old house filling her with nostalgia, but she’d already begun to forget the details like the color of the granite in her bathroom or the kind of flooring in the study. Then another family moved into it, and she’d lost all ties.

One day, another girl would move into the warmth of Zayn’s love – a stronger girl than her in his eyes, she supposed – and she’d have moved into the warmth of someone else’s love as well. But that didn’t keep something so familiar to suddenly feel strange. There was a word for that…. If only she could think of it…

“Happy!” Lo cried out, jerking them to a stop, bringing Happy abruptly out of her reverie. Though, if anything, it was their sudden lack of movement instead of her name that jarred Happy back to reality.

“Wh-what?!” She gasped like she’d just come up for air after swimming an Olympic lap, looking wildly around to find whatever had stopped them, unaware that it was her own self.

“Have you heard a word I just said?” Lo demanded, releasing Happy’s arm for the more favorable and irritated position of putting both fists on her hips. Any other context, Happy would’ve laughed at the petulant Lo adopting the expression of a five year old, but the fire that burned in Lo’s eyes made her swallow her smile.

Like a doe in headlights, Happy’s eyes were wide in the headlights of Lo’s fury now directed onto her. Rubbing her reddened arm with a slight bitterness, she tried for an affronted approach, “Yeah. ‘Cause I have! Are you saying that I’m not capable of listening to you? That’d I’d be such a bad friend as to tune out on you?”

Lo’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, radiating lightning bolts that shot into Happy’s soul, searing her with disapproval, “What’d I just say?”

“Something I absolutely agree with?” Happy attempted, but Lo’s transition from hip jut to an arm cross told Happy that her friend was unamused. Huffing, Happy was grateful that the white hallway they were in was empty. No one should have to see this spectacle, much less be in the radius of the blast zone of Lo’s ire.

“Happy!” Lo cried out, her eyes blazing.

“I’m sorry.” Happy threw her hands up, instinctively moving away from Lo, biting her lip. “It’s just that you’ve been saying the same thing for the past fifteen minutes, and I can only take so much of it, and every time I try to get a word in edge-wise, the rant restarts! Forgive me if I don’t want to hit restart!”