The Diary of Our Love

Chapter 99

I finished my exams. My second year of college was completed and in a couple of months I would start my third year. However, by then, I just wanted to enjoy the summer the best way I could. Lars and Kirk were still on a mission to take me on tour with them even though I had stated that I wasn't going. Honestly, I didn't feel like bumping into James every day. It was so weird for me and for him. It had been a couple of weeks since he had been to my college to tell me I was free to go but I didn't change my mind. I thought it would be best for both of us not to be around one another.

Francesca and James separated. I knew he had found himself an apartment in Marin County, according to Pep, but I didn't know where he was living at the time and I didn't ask. We had seen each other at Lars's but it was the usual, we said hello and then we just didn't talk at all. Sometimes it hurt a lot that he still didn't want to talk to me. It had been a couple of months by then and I just wished he'd just say what he wanted to say, or that he would just slap me too and then we could start over. It corroded me inside the despise he showed whenever he saw me. I couldn't stand his silence. And in all this, what was harder for me, it was watching him destroying himself little by little and there was nothing I could do because I shouldn't get close to him nor did he let me. It was so hard every time I saw him taking a pill, or drinking beer after beer, getting so drunk to the point where he couldn't stand and do anything. This was incredible hard for me. One time I tried to help him and he shook me away. He was very rude, so I stopped trying. We were at a very weird place.

Life went on though...

"Mom, I can't believe you're joining us." I told her very amused that night.

Pepper and Kirk dragged me to a restaurant. They invited me to have dinner with them and as I was supposed to have dinner with my mother, I refused it. My mother, to my surprise, suggested that we would have dinner, the four of us so we would all be together. Lani was in Hawaii visiting her family, so Kirk was going alone. Pepper was coming to pick up and my mother and me.

"Why not?" She responded. "I know both Kirk and Pep. So, I don't see why we shouldn't have dinner together." She said, sitting at the edge of my bed watching me getting dressed.

"And they're almost your age, so it's fine. I do like that you and dad get along so well with my friends." I told her.

"We didn't know anyone here. Do you know dad saw James the other day?"

"He told me." I said being vague.

I didn't like to talk about him and the more I wished people would stop talking about him the more everyone would talk about him. Those were even worse. My parents, Lars, Kirk, Pepper, Lani, Sky... all of them would have something to say about him. Sometimes, I just wanted to yell and tell them that it still hurt a lot for me, but then I thought it was better if I didn't say anything at all. Even my mother was trying to convince me to go on tour. No one seemed to understand how hard it was to be near him at that point.

"Your father said he looked bad." She said looking at me studying my reaction, but with my mother I could be completely honest.

"Mom, let's not talk about him... it still hurts too much." I claimed. "It's not like I'm over him or anything close to that."

"He's free." She said.

"You know... you people are funny... a couple of months ago you were all telling me about how I should keep a certain distance from him because his addiction was destroying me too. Now you're all trying to convince me that I should go after him. This is insane! He may be free, but he's still an addict and most of all he doesn't even want to look at my face." I told her and then I turned around to finish my makeup.