Living Next Door To Alice

39/ Peace

"You were the one who wanted distance, Alice. It wasn't as if you were easy to talk to given that you didn't want to." He pointed out, referring to the moment she had told him she needed a break. It seemed to mean something else for the both of them.

"I never said I didn't want to talk to you, FP. Why are you acting like this?" Her voice cracked and she stopped her lip from quivering by biting down on it.

"Like what?" He shrugged, his voice quite and vulnerable.

"Like I am this kind of monster." She croaked out, her eyes full of tears.

This isn't what she wanted to create. All she needed were a few days to think about how their relationship could work when they were separated by thousand of miles. It had never been her intention to hurt him, or to give him the feeling that this was over.

But now it seemed like it was. And he was hurting her too by blaming her for things she had never done or said, without hearing her out first. What had happened to them? How could they go from being on cloud nine to two people who were hurting each other and didn't seem to be able to fix it?

"I wanna be alone." FP shook his head and walked away, and closed his bedroom door louder than he intended.

Fred opened his mouth to say something to Alice, but she wiped away the tears that fell and stormed out towards her own apartment without another word.

**

The following morning, Alice left her apartment with her laundry basket on her hip, to go downstairs and throw the load into the washing machines. What she didn't predicted though, was that the second she closed her front door, someone else across of her did the exact same. It was FP, who was on his way to do groceries. He froze when he looked straight into Alice's eyes.

"Hey..." He said quietly, as he relaxed the slightest bit.

"Hi." Alice swallowed and cursed herself for sounding so squeaky.

Both of them were silent, wanting to say so much but neither of them knowing how to. Things had changed, maybe for good. It was FP who broke the awkward tension.

"Alice, I think we should talk." He said calmly.

Yesterday they were so overwhelmed with emotion that they couldn't sit down and talk to one another like two people in a relationship should. If they weren't going to talk out what was happening between them, then things would only get worse.

"Are you ready for that?" Alice asked quietly, but corrected herself immediately.

"I mean, are you still mad at me?" Her cheeks flushed and she has trouble looking at him.

There was nothing that she'd rather do then talking to him about their fight, but to be able to do that he couldn't be mad anymore, or it would end up in another argument.

"No— yes— maybe— no. I'm not. I am not sure what to feel. I was hoping we could talk about that." He rambled confused, and sighed deeply.

"I do want to talk to you." Alice gave him a small smile. She wasn't sure what the result of a heart to heart talk was going to be, but they couldn't go on this way or they'd lose each other for good.

"I've missed you." She confessed silently as she swallowed away her tears. It slipped her tongue easily, like it was an impulse that she couldn't even fight.

"I've missed you, too." He smiled sadly. If only she knew how much he had been wanting to go home to be with her.

"Should I come to your place tonight? At eight?" Alice proposed, as the tension between them was growing again.