supernova

Atlas: Chapter 55

Arabella followed me into the room I was staying in. God, I was so fucking nervous. I was on edge for so long.

I blurt it out.

"Do you hate me?" I asked her. "Well, I know you don't hate me, but do you dislike me?" I tried to sound so casual and curious, but I couldn't. How could I? It wasn't something that easy for me to hide anymore. I don't know what Alexander did to her, but it still made my nerves shoot up inside me every-time I thought of what Arabella might think of me.

"No. I don't Atlas. I didn't hate you or dislike you when I broke up with you either. I hated you at one point, I heavily disliked you too, but I don't hate you as an ex. I hated the person you were when we met."  She never actually hated me? I would understand why she would, I did my best to get her to hate me.

Why do we always end up talking about things from seven years ago? Right, we haven't talked since.

"How do you forgive people for horrible things they've done to you?" I asked her. "How did you forgive me for being terrible? How did you forgive your mom?" I had to ask her. I just had to. What is it about the way she sees things that allows her to be so much more liberal with her forgiveness?

"I don't just forgive people. They can say sorry and you don't have to forgive them. You aren't required too. They are apologizing to you, so if you aren't comfortable with it, don't accept it. I don't know when I forgave you. It was probably when you took care of me when my mom was in the hospital. I forgave my mom when she took her health into her own hands and went to the hospital."

I gave her so much shit about allowing her mom to harm her. She was seventeen. What else did she know how to do? What was she supposed to do? She was burdened with the bills and parented her own mother. I saw the way she talked to Munynyim on the first day of junior year. She used to take care of everyone but her fucking self.

But how did she know that it was time to forgive her mother? What inside her allowed her too? Would I be able to forgive my biological mother the same way?

How would I even respond to her now that she's reached out to me?

"How do you know when it's right to forgive someone?" I could feel my voice shake as my throats strained.

"When you feel one hundred percent okay with forgiving them. Do you want to forgive this person? Don't force yourself too. It's your forgiveness and if you think they haven't earned it, then they haven't earned it." I couldn't make this night about this. I couldn't dump all of this on her.

"You're comfortable sharing a bed with me?" I abruptly changed the topic.

"Yea, if I wasn't I would've survived Michael's kicking," She joked, and I was thankful she didn't ask any questions or steer back to the other conversation.

"Okay, good, just making sure. What did Alexander do to you?" I was so curious.

"I don't want to talk about it please." She stood taller as she said it and I immediately felt bad.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. Let's watch a movie." I looked around for my bag and pulled out my laptop.

"Legally Blonde!" She called out.

She stilled liked that?

"You still watch Legally Blonde?" I asked with a laugh, but I still pulled up the movie. "You've found no new comforting movie?" I mean, come on: so many movies have been release since we graduated in 2021.

"I watched She-Ra in two days the summer before college, and I still watch that. Do you want to watch that? Catra and Adora are just top tier. Don't even get me started on how much I love Mermista and Seahawk." Huh? I clicked out of Legally Blonde and pulled up She-Ra.