the art of letting go

one - new york city

the art of new york city 

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"That fucking bitch-eating, shit-talking son of a bit-"

I blinked, unimpressed by Shaylah Taumata's seemingly wrathful rant. She seemed to notice that I wasn't paying attention almost instantly and sent me a dry glare.

"What'd he do now?"

"He kissed Kady!"

I snorted loudly, rolling my eyes as Shaylah continued her rant. She continued with her excessively long story about the party she attended last night and the moment she mentioned who was there, I tuned her out.

Shaylah was my best friend, and one of the longest friends I'd ever had too. When I moved to New York at fourteen, Shaylah was one of the only assholes who bothered to speak to me. Not that I was ever particularly approachable, having argued with every teacher on my first day at that shitty high school. When she approached me during lunch, I tried to argue with her too, not interested in something as arbitrary as friends. She laughed, shook it off and sat down. I hadn't been able to shake her off since. After moving to Los Angeles with my brother over four years ago, we hadn't stayed in contact despite her being one of the most tolerable of our little group of friends. Despite that, my actions apparently didn't stop her from screaming in the local coffee shop, the one we used to visit when we were kids, when she saw me just over a week ago.

Then again, Shaylah was always the most energetic out of the two of us. That's one of the reasons why Kareem liked her so much. Kareem was my adopted father (technically), despite starting out as my foster brother many, many years ago. He came back from overseas when I was seventeen, tracked me down, found a boyfriend, and I asked him to adopt me. Now he was happily married to his husband, Saint, and they toured the world together with Kareem's band Fallen Temple. The very reason why we had to pack up and move to LA was due to the band being offered the record deal that Sacha, Saint's younger brother, Bodhi, Shaylah's older brother, and their drummer Isaiah had been working on since they met.

Yeah, even I struggled with all their names at first. That sentiment wasn't echoed by anybody else, however. 

Fallen Temple had taken over the world. From world tours to sold out album sales, my brother had captured the hearts of millions and I loved witnessing every second of it. Nobody deserved it as much as he did.

Returning to New York for University didn't seem like a smart decision now that I was finally back, and I missed my brother and his stupid face and his stupid, crying daughter a little. But becoming a doctor was never meant to be easy. I thought I'd just be able to get through my degree the way I wanted to. No distractions, no pointless discussions with peers, no people.

I hated people.

But then Shaylah showed up that day and suddenly I was being pulled back into the gossip sessions.

The boy she was complaining about was Brayden Harper. Tall, handsome, and as sweet as candy. He often spent our teenage nights doing something stupid, like trying to create the biggest soap bath in existence, or attempting to find out how many chicken nuggets he could consume before vomiting. Shaylah had practically been in love with him since they were children, even though he went to her rival High School.

Probably the least favorite member of the little friend group Shaylah had maintained was Kady Deaton. Kady was beautiful, with long black hair and a killer smile to match. It's safe to say she gained the attention of everybody she'd ever met. We hadn't left on good terms, considering the fact that she was my ex girlfriend. She'd wanted more than I was prepared to give and, to be honest, we were only fifteen. My last two years in the city were spent with her bitter remarks and our arguments interrupting any sort of social gathering that was arranged. The fact that Brayden kissed her didn't surprise me, given his extensive past when it came to women and the fact they both screamed power couple when beside each other.