Atlas Black

Chapter 13

A T L A S B L A C K

I've been fairly absent, not showing up to my classes, barely arriving on time. My priority isn't really education so I'm not bothered. My only focus is on how the fuck I get closer to Llana.

Some sort of strategy needs to take place and so for the commencing week after the bar incident, I've been mostly MIA on most of my lessons. But something - someone, specifically - catches my eye whenever I'm staring out the highest floor of my apartment.

The view up here is absolutely breathtaking and every night I come out here to soak up the oxygen and inhale some fresh air. sometimes to let my mind be wonder free and light up a cigar.

So it doesn't escape me when I see a 5'5, petite, brunette woman making her way down the few blocks to get too the gym. And I actually scoff, because what could she possibly be doing at the gym at a time like this.

My eyes are definitely not deceiving me as it looks like to me she's wearing my hoodie I discarded over to her. I knew once I gave it her that I wouldn't be getting it back as she wouldn't know who it'd belong to. But I don't even care.

The gym glasses windows are clear and transparent so Im able to watch her training and learning techniques from the gym instructor, Ezra Knight, from a much further and higher distance. I've seen him at the gym from time to time. Guys a total dickhead. Respectfully so.

I don't know what the dude is playing at but it's the first I've seen her smile as big and wide as it is. The knot in my chest tightens, pulling and tugging. I've never thought I needed to see how beautiful she smiles until now.

The more I'm paining myself by looking, it's slowly killing me from the inside. I blow out the last puff of smoke as I trample on the cigarette on the floor of the balcony and make my inside.

This long week of observing from inside my apartment has been rough, and the day I decide to get up early and stop my ogling was the day I couldn't handle another smile being directed towards Ezra.

They have a mutual, platonic relationship with each other but I'm overanalysing everything and the thoughts won't stop roaming somewhere deeper and darker making me misinterpret every small little insignificant movement.

Opening the glass doors to the gym on this Saturday morning, it seems to be relatively empty so I gather myself somewhere private so she won't be able to spot me and distract me.

I head to the second floor where I hop on a tread mill and do my usual runs. Plugging in my AirPods and drowning out my surroundings around me as I listen to 'Heartless' by the weeknd to start off my routine.

The playlist then shifts to 'Swim' to 'Friends' by Chase Atlantic and somewhere along the lines, the lyrics hit deep. Especially that one chorus where there's so much emotion being evoked into it, without a doubt making it my favourite part of the entire song.

'Now what the hell were we?
Tell me we weren't just friends
This doesn't make much sense, no
But I'm not hurt I'm tense,
But I'll be fine without you babe...'

That last line. It brings me back to Llana. And how our situation mirrors the words precisely to the song. We used to be friends but it always felt more than that... I'm now not feeling the hurt, numb from the pain of my loss of both my mother and what I could've had with Llana. I'm tense with everything, on edge. And I know, that somebody I will be fine without her one day, I so desperately hope. But will I really?