Already Gone

4

dream

Where did I go wrong? When did I begin to scare him away? What was it that made him unable to talk to me?

Time seemed to stop working in the hours that passed after the phone call. Even though he said he wasn't upset, I couldn't help but blame myself.

It felt like he didn't want me anymore, like he was trying to get rid of me, but without the sugarcoating. I felt guilty for making him want to do that.

But I knew if I wanted any sort of redemption, I had to keep it together for the both of us. For George.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

I joined the VC as soon as I saw my favorite names under the tag.

Sapnap

GeorgeNotFound

The chatter was dim and watery, barely livening up as I joined the call. So, naturally, I ignored it.

"Guys, I'm gonna stream, can you join." I purposely cut into whatever conversation they had previously been having, and I purposely didn't really give them a choice to be in the stream or not.

It had been more than a few weeks since I had last streamed, and I was a little nervous. Various accusations had been thrown at me - most of them with shallow proof to back them up; but nevertheless, they were enough to convince me to make some sort of comeback video, even though it was probably pointless.

It had taken up a lot more of my time than I had intended - stressed me out more than I had intended, therefore distracting me from my usual routines.

"What? You haven't streamed in weeks Dream - are you sure you're ready? You've really gotta take it easy on yourself dude." Sapnap sprung in, supporting me, as he always did.

"Really? How come? It's been forever?" George echoed, supporting from the sidelines, only a lot quieter.

"Guys, chill, it's just streaming. It's what I love to do. Besides - why wouldn't I?" I asked blatantly.

"Because you're barely out of that whole scandal thing! And things have been kind of weird lately. I would have thought you'd have wanted everything to blow over before returning to anything." 

"Okay, well I'm not. I need to clear my head - and clearly so do you guys." I finished, shooting a subtle jab at George.

The stream went well, at first it felt strange to be talking to hundreds of thousands of people right away again, but everything soon settled into its familiar place again. The air was thick like something was present that we weren't supposed to be aware of. 

But I could definitely feel it - feel how uncomfortable it was to be sat there with me communicating with chat, Sapnap communicating with me, and George communicating with nobody. I was trying to reach him, but he felt so distant. Like being on call didn't make up for the hundreds of kilometers that were physically between us.

By the end of the stream, I felt exhausted. It had only been a few hours, but the conversation was constantly so drab, so one-sided that it felt like effort trying to maintain it. 

Something that once would have felt like relaxation now felt like a task. 

Socializing always came as a natural skill to me, when with the right people. It had never felt like such a stretch to the mind as it had that stream, especially since it was with the people who I would have called 'the right people'.

My train of thought was suddenly broken by an announcement from Sapnap.

"Alright, losers I'm out. You guys are tiring me out with all this one-sided conversation thing. Sort it out while I'm gone, will ya? loveyoubye" He squeezed in at the end, almost too quickly to hear.

The call fell silent, leaving just me and George.

Me and George.

"George?" I say, timidly, since the last time we spoke was the fight. "I'm sorry about yesterday, I feel really bad about making you mad at me like that."

"Dream, don't worry about it. I literally didn't give it a second thought when you hung up." He replied, almost immediately. It sounded like a lie. I could hear the distant croak in his voice.

I wanted things to go back to how they used to be - where my daily routine involved hopping in a ten-hour voice call with George or Sapnap and just chatting mindlessly, or playing a carousel of random games together to pass time.

So instead of comforting him more, bringing up past memories, try and rekindle what we once had that clearly wasn't there anymore - I sucked it up and moved on.

"Okay, good, I'm glad. Wanna play Geoguessr or something? Whatever, I don't mind?" I asked, probably sounding slightly too eager, but I didn't care, it was only George.

After a few moments of silence, he answered.

"Um. No, I think I'm done for today, I'm gonna go sleep I guess. Bye." 

"Oh, uh, yeah of course. Guess I will too then, don't wanna get out of-" I was cut off by the sound of George leaving the call.

"...sync," I finished, to no-one in particular.

WORD COUNT: 865

Okay so I am not a fan of this chapter, I just wanna whip out the big guns but I know that it wouldn't be good if I did that yet.

I love you<3

VOTEEEEE^-^