2.18: Chaos
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
There were shouting, and then there were intangible words. All I could see was that Audra's mouth opening and then moving very fast, but she could very well be saying 'I'm so proud of you April' for all I know.
Because at that moment, my mind went defunct.
It was all pure instincts now, my movements, where my eyes go, the howling from my mouth. My whole body teamed up and shut down my brain because it had one mission: to protect the core in my chest, and apparently, that meant throwing everything towards the single existence in the world whom I couldn't bear to see.
That Guy.
I had taken care of the Penguin well. When it came, along with the crippling pain and annoying snot, I held my breath and then feed it with good quotes from Netflix. When it barged into my head while I was trying to concentrate on my work, I pat on its head and then wait for the Penguin to stop yapping and howling and making a mess. I didn't complain, I didn't protest, and I probably should.
Because right now That Guy was right in front of me, and none of what I throw towards him hit him.
"Stop ducking!" I found myself shouting.
He was looking at me. I could tell, even though I tried my best to not look at him, because that was the kind of gaze that he had. He always looked at me intensely, strongly, as if he was trying to occupy 100% of my mind.
Which had been all good and dandy in the past, but now it all just made every inch in my body burn.
There were more words, some from him this time.
But I didn't listen, couldn't listen. I walked up towards him and then picked up the plastic up that I had thrown before and then threw it again to him.
I was pretty sure that what I'd done would warrant my death in the most agonizing way, especially considering how proficient That Guy was at fighting, but my hands didn't care about the longevity of my life. My hands, to my surprise, wanted gore.
That Guy opened his mouth and more words came out, and then, after I hit him with my purse, he finally turned away and walked to the door.
Audra tried to stop him, but he was bigger and taller and he just walked away from her.
"What the hell are you doing, you freak?!" Audra screeched at me.
Oh, ears now functional. I could hear words again.
She turned towards me, all eyes and teeth and ready to pounce. I stared at her back, trying to send message via osmosis 'PLEASE NOT NOW I HAVE THINGS TO DO'.
Audra got the message.
She jerked away from me and then bent down to pick up the cup. Then she gave the cup to me.
I took the cup, and then ran away to the door. I saw Him already on the hallways.
"I didn't give it to you to throw it at him again!!" Audra reminded me. "I thought you'd need some water to calm down that crazy eyes!"
But it was too late, because I had already aimed at the back of his head. The cup hit a second later, and this time, He stopped walking. Really stopped.
Suddenly, fear took over me. That Guy didn't take out any gun or weapon but for some reason, his presence to grow and fill up the space of the apartment hall. The air temperature seemed to drop a few hundred degrees when he turned to me.
"April, stop."
Tremor ran over my whole spine as his voice was registered to my ears. It was scary how much his voice calmed the chaotic part of my brain. I stretched out my right hand towards the apartment, and even though I hadn't said anything, Audra handed me another plastic cup.
I threw it at him. The cup didn't manage to reach him, however, and only limped pathetically a meter away from him.
"Oh, so you want to throw things at me?" he finally understood the state of mind I was in. He gathered the two cups and then threw it to my feet. "Come on. Throw harder."
And so I did. Again, and again, and again. And he just took it. He was even being nice by moving towards where the cups would hit.
"Miss you, I don't!!" screeched I.
Holy cheese.
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The pandemonium that was my throwing things towards Him finally stopped when Audra's neighbor called the apartment security. It took us a couple of hours to explain the whole ordeal to him, and then the security gave us space to sort out all the 'knots' in our lives.
And that was why I was trapped in this situation. Me, Audra, and Him, sitting on the floor on Audra's all white apartment, because Audra had thrown out all the tables and chairs and sofas to free up some space.
"This is nice," Audra was smiling. "Right? This is nice. I heard that you like Minimalism from your posts on Instagram."
He didn't answer, and only cast his gaze downward.
I was highly stressed and highly anxious, two of my most confusing emotions. I wanted to go to my room to get Teddy Bear #43, or better yet, I wanted to chat Alex and told him about all of this. He always seemed to know what to do to make me relax.
"Breathe," He said, and I immediately removed my hands from my nose.
"No," I inhaled a bit and then pinched my nose again. "If I breathe too much, then I will smell you."
"What's your deal, April?" Audra snapped at me. "I mean, Quentin warned me about your... 'Episodes' but this is straight up psycho!"
"It's..." I was only beginning to talk when the door pushed open. Quentin emerged, his hair was now natural blond and buzzed cut, and he was wearing half a suit with non-matching shorts.
"Audra!" he panted. "What's with my sister, you said she's losing her mind-" the last few words trailed off as he took a long look at our guest, the Wonderful and Rich and Extremely Popular Wood-Carver.
"YOU FUCKING SHEEEEETTTT-" was Quentin's last comprehensible words before he leapt towards Him.
And I watched in horror as Audra watched in horror at the sight of two grown men fighting inside her apartment.
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Twenty minutes and another Security Officer later, the four of us were sitting cross-legged at the white, spacious floor of Audra's apartment. Quentin and His face were already black and blue, and their hairs were spiking out in a way that would make Cosplayers seethe with envy.
"I can't believe that you're what? 22 now and still fight like a fucking girl," He hissed towards Quentin.
"Hey, you grabbed my hair, first!" Quentin snarled back.
"And girls can fight pretty well!" I butted into the conversation. "They aim for the eyes. That's why girls grow their nails. So that they have claws."
Audra subsequently hid her hands behind her back. "Wait, wait. So all three of you know each other?"
"He's the guy who ruined my family a few years ago!" Quentin pointed an index finger towards Ryder. "I told you about him, right?"
"Wait, that's how you talk about me to the people around you?" He looked like He was ready to punch Quentin again. I noticed one thing though, he never really looked at me. Not even accidentally, as if he made it his lifelong mission to not lay eyes on me.
"Well, aren't you?" Quentin shot up a look so dirty it might make babies feel violated.
He didn't answer and only looked away. "I'm not actually here to stir up some drama. I thought I was here to finally make a girl shut up about having some 'collab vids' with me."
"Said 'girl' is not me," I said, holding up my hand so that Quentin knew that I wasn't in any way masochistic.
"It's me. But Quentin, I never knew about Ryder's history and what he'd done to your family!"
As Audra said his name, I sang some 'Lalalala' so that I wouldn't need to hear his name.
Quentin caught up immediately.
"From now on, this guy's name is forbidden to be said around April," Quentin announced regally. "We need to use a codename." He looked around Audra's apartment, and then his eyes set on a throw pillow with a Penguin picture on it. "It's gonna be Penguin!"
"Wait, I don't even have any say about this?" He spoke up.
Quentin and I both glared at Him until he shut up.
I felt my brother's hand wrapped around mine, and I squeezed the calloused fingers.
"I'm so happy to see you," I smiled at him. "And I'm totally fine if you hold Audra too with your other hand because she looks like she needs that, too."
Quentin did what I advised. "Are you okay?"
"As long as I don't look at him or don't smell him I'm okay," I said, focusing intently on my toe. "I'm fine."
"Wait, wait, let me get this straight. So what did he actually do to ruin your family?" Audra, who was incredibly out of the loop of our tangles of history, asked.
"They dated," Quentin pointed at Him and me. "And then he left her."
Audra pursed her lips, and then nodded exaggeratedly. It was weird how she managed to make me feel sympathized and then shamed at the same time. I guess that was something that you can do once you were good enough at being a Normal Person.
"But it's weirder than I never know anything about you wanting to do a collab with him. Does he even know how to act in front of a camera?"
"The only reason I'm here is because she won't stop messaging me about having a collaboration," He countered. "I was about to refuse. I never intentionally... want to..." He glanced at me, and my psyche caught fire.
"You never intended to meet my sister again?! What are you, a fucking monster?" Quentin's face was turning purple.
"Of course I want to meet her!"
"How dare you! You don't deserve her!"
"Oh my God Quentin, make up your mind! Do you want me to meet her or not?!"
He was massaging his temple, the frustration was clear even though he closed his eyes. It was excrutiatingly hard to not let my eyes wander all over him. Before, That Guy was considered handsome in a rugged kind of way, but now he was straight-up beautiful. The kind of beautiful that was unreal and almost exclusively belonged in the Photoshop department. I also noticed that He added more tattoos, which was cleverly hidden beneath his clothing.
All of a sudden, my vision went dark.
"DON'T LOOK AT HIM!" Quentin shouted right beside my ear. "Stay strong! He looks like he's been under the knife 10 times and eat steroids for dinner!"
"Then you should cover Audra's eyes too because she's been staring even harder than me."
"I should just go," He said. "I'm... I'm sorry. Audra, I will not make a video with you. I just can't see how my line of work and your line of work can mix. Besides I'm absolutely awful on camera."
And then, for the first time since the last two hours, I felt his gaze bored to my forehead.
I started talking to my old friend God. Make him talk to me talk to me talk to me talk to me talk to me talk to me talk to me. And then, after a while, I changed my request. No talk please no talk please no talk please no talk please.
"I'll just go."
God heard my second plea and ignored my first.
He didn't want to talk to me.
He left me because he said he wanted to pursue a better life. Now he got a better life and he still didn't want me.
I dashed towards him, and I then I screamed to him the monologue that I'd been creating in those dark lonely nights.
"I hate that you make those incorrigible love songs on the radio make sense to me! I hate that you've been very invasive in my brain but extremely elusive in real life! Hate you I do!" the last part was totally unexpected since I was planning to be grammatically correct. "I wish you were gone."
He stopped on his tracks, and for a moment I thought that he would turn away and the last four years would be gone. We would just rewind everything. We could be like we were before, only He would be happier and I would be busier.
But then he never showed me his face. He only muttered something, before he got into the elevator and left the apartment halls empty.
I stayed in my place, confused and annoyed that I didn't have better hearing.
"He said, 'Good luck with your boyfriend!'" a kind old lady on the room next to Audra's shouted to me. "Now get back to your room! Y'all fought long enough and I need my nap!"
"But I don't have a boyfriend!" I shouted back at her. "Maybe he talked some more about that? Ma'am?"
"Oh my God, April. It's obviously your 'not-boyfriend' Alex," Audra chimed in from her room. "Duh!"
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I'M SORRY
It was supposed to be out on Saturday, but I was having a lot of problems at the end of the chapter, and I got hit by the WORST period ever. My stomach was in pain, guys. My heart, too, because of an unrelated issue, but heartache and period doesn't mix well. Period.
Anyway, next update will still be on Wednesday :D thanks a lot for reading, and I hope you like the chapter!