After a year and a half of trying to move on from the what-ifs, the tides have pulled Alexandra Rivera and Zachariah Kim back together again.
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In the h...
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When I slammed my phone down in frustration after trying to call Jem for the hundredth time, only to get her voicemail message in return, Kylie's head shot into the doorway. I hastily attempted to pick the device up from where it had landed on the floor, only to drop it once again when I could barely keep my fingers from shaking.
The days were turning bad again. And even though I knew I only had myself to blame, it didn't make the onslaught any less frustrating.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm okay," I told her. The words didn't sound convincing. "Actually, no. Not really."
It went against our status quo, but she edged her way into the room. "Do you want to talk about it?"
The answer was no. I didn't want to talk about it. All I wanted to do was close the blinds, crawl under the covers, and pretend like none of this ever happened. Or maybe I could take a cue from other people in my life and run away, leaving this entire island behind with all the bad memories.
The longer she stood there waiting for me to answer, I knew that wouldn't solve anything. If I stopped wallowing in my self misery, maybe I'd accept Kylie's blessing in disguise.
"Emmie, the one that used to stay over here sometimes?" Kylie nodded. "She left for Seattle six months ago and my other friend is about to head to DC for school. I thought, you know, after not being able to talk to the first friend before she left, I'd at least find a way to talk to the second one but she hasn't been answering my calls. Every time I try to go to her dorm to talk to her, she's never there."
Kylie struggled to find a way to comfort me. I'd stopped the near-stalker tendencies of trying to get Jem's attention and fell back on spamming her phone. At some point, I'd have to give that up as well.
"Why did she go to Seattle?" Kylie asked.
"She has family there," I answered.
"Well if that's the case, I don't think going there was just about trying to run away from you," she suggested. "I think it's probably more than that."
I glanced down at the carpet and pulled at a piece of fuzz. "I'm not self-absorbed enough to think it'd be just because of me, but I hate that I didn't try harder before she left." Looking up at Kylie, I felt the tears well up. "If the situation was reversed? She'd have fought so hard to stop me. It'd be straight out of a rom-com if it needed to be. I'd be steps away from getting onto the plane and I'd hear her calling for me, and then she'd beg for me to never leave her."
"Are you sure you two aren't in love?"
Despite everything happening, I managed a laugh. "We used to always say if we didn't settle down by the time we were twenty-seven, we'd commit to a lifetime of exploring the world together and never worry about getting into another relationship again."
"Well, hey." Kylie tapped her hand against my knee. "At the end of the day, there's nothing you can do about Emmie, short of getting on a plane and hopping over to Seattle to win her back. You tried your best to make amends with Jem but you can't force something the other person doesn't want. So, maybe it's best to just work on whatever you need to handle, and maybe in the future they'll come around."
