It was a Thursday night, eight o'clock and all of the city lights were lit right up. She stumbled through the rain, splashing through puddles at the edge of the sidewalk, practically tripping over the umbrella which she has given up on; it hung at her side and it would be soaking her jacket and pants had they not already been drenched. She yelled into her phone as the rain fell into her eyes, trying to hear anything over the honking the cars, the sound of rain and her own racing thoughts. Her boyfriend, whom she was nearly positive was drunk, was yelling at her over music on the other end.
"What? You can't just say that! What are you even going on about?" her strained voice screamed though the heavy rain as the wind whipped her hair into her eyes.
Her boyfriend of almost two years wasn't really the type of guy who is easy to hold down; she'd lost track of how many times they had broken up now and she was sick of it but he didn't seem to leave her alone. No matter how many notorious faults he pinned on her when he was hammered, the next day he always forgave her for the things that he had blamed her for the night before.
She could picture what he probably looked like at that moment while she listened to him loudly slur profanities into her ear and she didn't even try to stop herself as she rolled her eyes. She could see his sweaty black hair hanging all the way down to his lips because he refused to get a hair cut, his navy blue sweatshirt, that she had seen him wearing in pictures on Instagram earlier that night, would be soaked with spilt beer and sweat and he would be stumbling around the room knocking things off of tables as he rambled on to her. At the same time, she could see the grey eyes that she had fallen in love with 2 years ago, she remembered wearing that navy blue sweatshirt around the house when he had been away for a month and she could hear his sober words coming through the same yelling voice, the one's that told her he would keep her safe and once again, she felt conflicted.
He had never hurt her physically, he had never even cheated on her; he would never have the guts to do that. She knew that he loved her but his drunk words blamed her for ruining his chance at the career path that had slipped from his grasp or accused her of wasting his money or for not being home exactly when he needed her and the list went on. People had always said to her, "drunk words are sober thoughts"and it was times exactly like this one, in the rain, on the sidewalk that made her rethink her situation.
"Dyl, please listen to me. Dylan! Stop talking for 3 seconds. Please," she begged. She had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and seemed to be completely ignorant to the rain as her thoughts about Dylan were louder than her concern to keep her phone dry. Her eyes were closed as she took a deep breath and gathered the courage to say what she was about to say.
He had finally stopped talking so she quickly took the opportunity to talk, "I know we've been together for two years even if it has been off and on," she took another breath and squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, "and it's been a really great two years and i know that you love me but i don't think i want to do this anymore," she opened her eyes and listened to him breathing on the other end. She expected him to yell even louder than before or maybe just swear in agreement since he seemed to be so angry at her right now but neither of these things happened, instead it was the last thing that she had expected, she heard the phone click. He hung up.
She continued her walk through the rain as it finally letup, she felt like she had been outside for hours and her clothes were extremely wet and extremely uncomfortable. She didn't bother calling him back, there was no point and besides, she had just broken up with her boyfriend of two years, she didn't want to make it worse; she already felt bad about it and a little broken herself. She finally reached her apartment and struggled to get her key out of the soaked pocket of her jeans. She immediately peeled her jeans off and threw them on top of the washing machine as she thought about how glad she was that Dylan had never moved in because his work was too far away. Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed that a red light was blinking on the answering machine. The only person who ever called her home phone was her mother or her brother, she pressed play. The manly voice of the answering machine began talking,
"You have two new messages, first message: Thursday, 9:17 pm," she checked her phone, it was 9:26.
"Ivy, it's me," it was Dylan. She guessed that he was so drunk that he couldn't even press the right number to call under her contact name in his phone, "What the actual heck? It's not like we had plans or anything but whatever, I guess I'll just go out to breakfast with someone else, it's fine, I'm not even thinking about you, don't call me," he hung up. He didn't sound like it was "whatever," his voice was shaky and she felt her heart ache but she tried to ignore it. She had forgotten that she was supposed to go out to breakfast with him tomorrow but she could hear people yelling in the background and asking him if he wanted another drink so she assumed that the only place he would be going tomorrow was to sleep.
"Next message: Thursday, 4:52 pm," the answering machine announced. She had been out of the apartment since 8:30 that morning.
"Hey, Ivy? Um, my name is Michael and I saw your thing at the college saying you were looking for a, um, roommate? So, i thought I'd call, yeah, you can call me back whenever you get this or anytime other than that like when you're free or like near the phone, it's all good, I'll just, yeah, see ya," she didn't recognize the voice but she put the number in her phone under the contact name "potential roommate" so she could call him tomorrow.
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A/N: Hi! So since this is my first chapter, I'll probably be changing it up a little bit still. Anyways, I'm sorry this was boring and not much happened but I had to start somewhere, the other chapters will be probably be sorta different than this one! Ya, the main character's name is Ivy, sorry it took me a while to actually introduce her. And I'll add a description soon btw! This accidentally got long but one more thing: I started writing this to practice writing in third person bc I'm not very good at it lol but if you enjoy it then that's really awesome okay bye
