Contains some swearing and suggestive material.
Kirstie was content.
She was happy.
She was just dandy.
She was fine.
She had a wonderfully single life, a puppy, a loving family, and a series of tightly-knit friendships.
Which was why it made absolutely no sense why she was in a bad mood.
The day had started off fine, she reflected, lying in bed with Olaf sprawled across her torso.
In fact, Mitch's cake balls had brightened her morning tenfold, and the recording sessions went unexpectedly well. Kirstie felt great.
At lunch, the quintet hat sat in a circle and rearranged a popular song in one session. They had it down pat, and they'd decided to post the live cover the following week. Kirstie was ecstatic.
They had the evening to themselves (huzza!), and Avi had brought a lovely lady, giggly and red-headed and smart, along with him.
And suddenly, Kirstie was irritable. The rest of the day leading up to their plans for dinner (that she wormed out of), she had snapped and hissed and basically been the snarkiest possible for her usually endearing persona.
She hadn't the slightest clue what might have triggered her sudden...sudden wrath.
Well, that wasn't exactly true.
She knew exactly what had caused her mean streak to pulse unsteadily.
Or who.
Avi Kaplan really was a piece of work.
Kirstie wished she meant that sarcastically, but honestly, all she could think about was how perfectly sculpted his face was, and how heartwarming his kindness was, and just how perfect his existence in general seemed.
And that made her mad. She grit her teeth in frustration as Olaf scampered away to the couch.
God, she was pathetic. Her palms fisted handfuls of hair, and she let herself cry a little. He was out in the real world, enjoying life and chatting up every pretty girl in sight, completely over them, and here she was. Alone. Angry. In love.
Her hand flopped beside her, tapping against her phone, and she picked it up. Scrolling through Twitter, she found herself being swallowed into a never-ending spiral of ire and confusion and sadness as she went through tweets on her feed.
Going out with friends. Best dinner ever!
A picture accompanied it, with Avi, red-headed Tania, Scott, and Kevin. They were all smiling at the camera with their arms around each other.
She clenched her left fist.
Tania and I literally had the most insightful conversation today.
Her body was wracking with sobs now.
(271 tweets later):
Wow. I just had a revelation of sorts. Love you TaniaIsCake!
She screamed.
Burying her face in her pillow, she cried. And cried. She cried till there weren't any tears left to shed.
As hours passed she felt Olaf snuggle against her comfortingly, and gave him a watery chuckle as she lay there, spent.
A storm was brewing outside.
She really wished she was stronger. She wished Avi would leave her mind. After all, it had been a mutual decision to end their relationship. There had been tears, but they knew it was for the sake of the band. They couldn't exactly keep their private lives separate from work if said private lives were at work. And every time they fought, they couldn't even talk about it, given how little free time they had on hand during tour. Which meant problems were cast aside like their clothes every other day in their hotel room. It was an unhealthy relationship, despite how invigorating it was. Despite how perfect it felt. That was not how relationships worked. And they knew it.
Kirstie set her jaw firmly. She had to get over him. She didn't need Avi, as much as her heart and mind disagreed. Their fallout simply proved they weren't meant for each other. She would find someone, eventually. I wasn't like he was special anyhow.
She didn't love Avi.
She never loved him anyway.
They were just a pair of naive children.
She didn't love Avi.
She didn't love Avi.
She didn't love Avi.
The doorbell rang, and she dragged herself sluggishly towards it, not bothering to cover her tear tracks.
A plaid-covered figure stood through the downpour.
"I love you", he gasped, wiping away rain that washed over his head.
She was shocked, obviously. But every line of defence she'd built for herself was beginning to fail her. She was tempted to give in. To just fall into his arms and make love till the sun rose.
But she couldn't. She didn't love Avi.
"No."
He gave her a confused look. "What?"
"I don't love you." Her practised response was unwaveringly stony.
She expected Avi to back off; to nod in understanding and apologise and walk away. What she didn't expect was for him to get right up in her face.
"You're lying", he said, a fire in his eyes, leaning towards her.
She suddenly felt her anger resurface with a blood-boiling intensity. Her heart thumped erratically. "Get out", she spat.
Avi didn't seem to have heard her though, because he walked straight in, soaked and messy, and pushed her against the door, slamming it shut. She felt herself gasp, and swallowed a moan that she felt in her throat as he brought his body inches from hers. No, Kirstin. You need to to this. For yourself.
"You love me. You do. "
"I don't", she growled, blocking out her body's instinctive reaction to his voice.
"Yes you do. "
"No, I don't. I don't think I ever lo-"
"Stop it! Stop saying that!"
"I. Don't. Love. You! Just leave"
"STOP FUCKING LYING, KIRSTIN!"
Kirstie's throat went dry. Her eyes were stinging but she kept her gaze fixed on his. She wasn't going to let herself be vulnerable again. Not weak. Not broken. If he could hurt her, she could hurt him.
Slowly, she felt his arms loosen their grip on her wrists he had pinned to her sides, and he backed away. Turning his head, he let out a shaky breath and wiped his teary eyes with a wet sleeve.
"I'm sorry, Kirstie", she heard him whisper tightly.
But she was not in the mood. "Yeah, well why don't you go tell Tania, huh? I bet she'd love to 'help you out'", she sneered maliciously, holding open the door for him to leave, her wrists burning.
Avi looked up sniffling, a hint of twisted amusement on his face.
"Someone's jealous.", he managed weakly as he walked out. Kirstie resisted the urge to bite his lip till it bled just to get rid of that irksome smirk on his face.
She watched as he left into the pouring rain outside, and closed the door quickly, sinking to the floor.
Her head in her hands, she groaned.
Because as much as Kirstie wished it weren't true, all she had wanted to do was kiss him. Well, slap him and scream at him and tear his hair out. But also kiss him.
All she wanted was him.
He was consuming her reason for existence, her priorities, her thoughts, her every waking moment was haunted by just how deep their connection was.
Fuck, she thought.
And then, walking into her room to change her sopping wet shirt, she really hoped the storm swept him away.
But a part of her hoped he'd swim back.
A/N: Hmm. I'm not entirely happy with this one. Initially, it was going to go a completely different direction with the whole jealousy thing, but I just felt like that wouldn't work out in a non-generic way. I know that I didn't really wrap up a lot of things, but one thing I can certainly say is this will have a few more parts to it.
Should it though? Any feedback is appreciated because I honestly have no idea whether it's worth another part.
Thanks, as always, for reading this loser's stories.
:)