Miss me

March

6 months left. Maybe 7? Lucy hopes it's 7. Honestly, she hopes it was 0. She didn't want her to leave. She couldn't stand the thought. Since Steph accepted her offer to Edinburgh, things had been tense, to say the least. Everything was getting a little too real now. Too overwhelming to think about, but too real to ignore. Too early to be mourning Steph's departure, but obviously, Lucy was doing just that.

She sighed dramatically and she lit her cigarette, perched daintily on the window ledge to let all the smoke outside.

"You smoke to much these days." Steph said gently, coming to join her by the window. She wrapped her arms around herself, a poor attempt at shielding the cold wind blowing inside the room.

Lucy side eyed her, taking in the little wisps of hair framing her face after continuously tugging on it from stress. The two girls had just finished filling in all of Steph's university accommodation crap. It'd taken far too long, and was done in far too much silence.

"I know." Lucy responded simply, looking back out the window, taking interest in the street lights and random cars parked along her road. Previously a social smoker, Lucy's little nicotine fix had heightened. She would now find herself rolling a cigarette in her room and inhaling it, with her head stuck haphazardly out the window, when things felt too much.

These days, things often felt too much.

Steph shook her head, looking down to conceal her barely there smile, as Lucy stubbed out the cigarette and flicked the remainder somewhere outside. She took one last gulp of the night air before pulling the window shut and flopping back down on her bed on the other side of the room.

"Are you staying over?" Lucy asks, the same time Steph said "I should probably get going." Music played out softly in the background.

The song changed; Riot by Earl Sweatshirt. Their song. They locked eyes, observing each other silently, and it hurt. It hurt so much. Steph's eyes were unreadable; Lucy blinked hard, forcing her own eyes to the ceiling above her. She tried to feign nonchalance, humming the tune idly, but of course Steph felt the shift in atmosphere and made her way over to the bed. She pulled Lucy's head into her lap, gently brushing the hair out of her eyes and soothingly caressing her face, her neck, her arms.

It was too much for Lucy, but at the same time not enough. It would never be enough. She was grateful for her head in Steph's lap, caught in a direction where she wouldn't be able to see Lucy painfully biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut in attempt not to cry.

They stayed like that for a few songs longer, before Steph leaned down and placed a feather light kiss on Lucy's forehead. Lucy rolled over to face the wall, listening to the sound of Steph shuffling around her room to gather her things. She let a few tears fall, she couldn't help it. Cause it hurt. It hurt so fucking bad.

"Text me when you get home." She said as she heard Steph make her way towards the door.

Steph silently walked downstairs and let herself out of the front door. She lingered on the porch steps, suddenly drawn to the little ivy that twirled up the wall on the front of Lucy's house. She took her time walking to the front gate; she admired the grass, growing greener by the day thanks to summer; the dahlias Lucy's mum had just planted for spring, as if trying to commit it all to memory. All the while, completely unaware of Lucy watching her from her bedroom window upstairs.