walls ✰ m.c.

Chapter 27

Michael and I kept eye contact, but Julia switched between us nervously. She could feel the tension in the air and took a small step back.

"Should I leave?" She whispered to me as she watched Michael, yet loud enough so he could hear.

"No." 

"Yes." Michael demanded over my voice at the same time. He had a straight face, but you could tell he was agitated. He propped himself up on the side of the door frame with his shoulder. One arm was over his head and he had a hand shoved in his front pocket. He began rubbing the back of his neck then broke our stare and glanced at Julia once. He froze his actions and raised his eye brows at Julia as he cocked his head slightly to the side.

"Right." She rested her hands on my shoulders from behind me. "Just please," she paused. "No blood, or sex, I don't really know how this is going to end, on our freshly stained porch." She ran off before I got the chance to yell at her for her comment. I folded my arms across my chest before asking him what he was here for, but he started before I could.

"Julia's a bitch." I scoffed at his blatantly rude comment.

"Did you come here just to insult my best friend or do you have an actual good reason?" I looked him up and down once, still curious as to how he was wearing those dark jeans in summer. He rolled his eyes once and stood up straight.

"I wanted to talk to you."

"We already did." I snapped back. "And showing up to Julia's house was definitely not the way to do it." I felt infuriated with him just showing up here and thinking that he could fix everything with a simple conversation. I knew that I wasn't just going to give in a forgive him, I didn't feel like he deserved any type of forgiveness after what he caused. "How did you even know I was here?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Julia told me you were here." He spilled. I made a mental note in my head to yell at her for telling him that too. I bit the inside of my cheek as he told me this, which I quickly released.

"And she let you come over?"

"Not exactly." He said with a hint of a presumptuous tone. "But in all seriousness I do want to talk to you."

"What is there even to talk about anymore? You said it was a mistake." I was beginning to show my annoyance with him and was not in the mood to fight about this, especially when my friend was eavesdropping a room away.

"No. You were the one to say it was a mistake, not me." He said, backing himself up.

"But you agreed with it!" I raised my voice at him and threw my hands in the air. I stared at him with an irritated look which he easily gave back. 

In all honesty, I hated fighting with Michael. No matter what grounds we were on. I didn't mind little joke fights about who got the last piece of pizza or who had control over the TV, but these types I hated. These were the ones that really got under my skin.

"Only because I didn't want to be the only one putting effort into this." His voice matched mine as he took a step closer to me.

"You didn't want to be the only one putting effort? Michael, that's what friends do. That's what you're supposed to be doing in a friendship. That's how it works." I shook my head at him, annoyed at his oblivion to the simple facts. 

"You know damn well we aren't just friends." He shot back. His hands raked through his hair of frustration and he sighed deeply, calming his voice once again. I lowered my head in slight guilt, thinking I was being a little to hard on him. "I get that you're mad and I know I've been messing up way too much lately, but I'm not just going to give up on you. I'm not going to pretend that what was said didn't happen." I blinked a few times, trying to process his words and create my own. I sighed once and reconnected our eyes.