Like Real People Do - Jill Roord

Future Of Something In Nothing

"Are you alright? I haven't heard from you in days," I paced back and forth in the confines of my childhood bedroom. 

"I'm alright, it's just been busy, I'm sorry," when she spoke there was no depth to the words, it was the first time when I really noticed the tone of her voice had become completely stripped of emotion, yet filled with exhaustion. 

"What have you been doing?" I sat down at my desk.

There was a moment of silence, I heard a sigh from her side of the call, "I've been getting back in the gym and making sure the house is clean."

I furrowed my eyebrows, did I believe her? I should. I should trust Hunter because if something was truly wrong, she'd tell me. Right?

"Well done," My voice was quiet, "I'm looking forward to seeing you in two days."

"Two days?" Hunter wasn't even able to follow the conversation properly.

"I'm coming back to London in two days."

I heard a smash and then silence down the phone.

"Are you alright?" I quickly checked, my legs begining to bounce up and down. 

"Yes. Yes, I'm alright," She told me, "A glass just fell off the table."

I knew how clumsy the brunette was, I also knew she struggled with having common sense half the time, "Be careful not to cut yourself on it, clean it up properly."

"I will," Hunter didn't have a witty comeback, there was no attitude in her tone, there was nothing, "I'm looking forward to seeing you Jilly, I'll come and pick you up from the airport."

I felt the smile effortlessly fall upon my face, it was the simple reasons like that which made me love her so deeply, "I'd like that."

"I'm glad," I could hear her smile, it sounded small but I knew it was there, "But I'm exhausted so I should head to bed."

"Okay liefje," I nodded, "I love you."

"I love you too."

The lines soon disconnected and I sat there in the silence, trapped inside my own mind and the worries it had wound up on, round and round like an obsession I couldn't detach from. I believed Hunter; she wouldn't lie to me, she'd ask me for help, she'd ask for me to come home if she needed me. But then why was I sat there with such a tight knot in my stomach, why was my heart racing like a constant thump in the back of my head and why did I suddenly feel so nauseous?

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TW: addiction

Hunter's POV

I'd tried to stay on track, I'd tried to keep myself active for those daily calls with Jill and sweet updates from the girls back at Barca. I'd really tried, not even for myself, but for them. 

Maybe that was the problem - I hadn't been doing it for myself. 

Everyone tells you that it gets better, but I found myself wondering when that time would come? This moment in time feels like forever, it had already lasted weeks, the seconds all the same and the hours just as long. I began to believe that maybe this was forever and that was that, maybe the light at the end of the tunnel didn't exist, maybe there wasn't a happy ending waiting for me with the simplicity of those words 'the end'.
There was no end to this, there was no avail when I was drowning in a sea with no end, just falling further and further as the light dimmed and the truth settled; she was never coming back. 

Nana was gone. 

The house was empty. It had never been empty like this before, there'd been Nana, Granddad and Leah and her dog Bella. But now it was just me. 

The one who'd been left behind in one way or another.

And to be honest, I didn't want company I found a comfort in the walls of my own sorrows, knowing no one else would understand because as much as they always tried to, they never would. They should be thankful for that. 

Life had turned into this loop, this never endingly bleak loop, where the only escape from the harrows of my mind was to drink.
It begun as a solution, a way to be my usual self and drown out the noise, so I could call Jill and join the Arsenal girls on their daily dog walks. But it had turned into this reliancy, like food or water, though those bottles somehow had an even more natural hold on me. I was surprised at how quickly I was caught in the trap, but then I found myself questioning if it was a trap I'd fallen into long ago.
Was it good? No. Absolutely not. 
Was it needed? Yes.
Everyone always said the first way of spotting a problem is when you hide it, but how was I supposed to be open when every storm in my head had always been pushed offshore? I was good at hiding it all in the past and still walking into that spotlight; it was how I'd always been. 

But this time felt different, I knew when the season came I could still play my part in the spotlight, close as we were, the Arsenal girls could be easily fooled. Though this time I had someone, I had Jill, someone who I never wanted to hurt nor disappoint; maybe that's why I'd stopped answering her calls, I always saw her name pop up but the shame which wrapped around me like a blanket and stopped me from accepting them. I couldn't let her down. But I also knew once she arrived home, it was almost impossible to lie to her for she knew me too well. She knew me better than I knew myself; that was a scary thing to face in the past, but right now it was completely terrifying. 

I wanted to be okay for Jill. I wanted to be okay for Alexia. I wanted to be okay for Mapi. Ona. Leah, and all the people who loved me but I couldn't be okay for myself, when I didn't even know who that was anymore.
It felt like when Nana passed, much of me died with her, she'd taken part of my soul to heaven with her and now I had this gaping hole in my chest, much like a gunshot wound, but it had missed my heart so I'd die a slow and painful death, my mind unravelling as I lost all sense of who I was while my heart pulled apart splinter by splinter.

Disappointment by disappointment.