Better Hollow {Finished}

Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

Two Weeks Went By, Things had returned to the way they'd been for months. James was sleeping in Ramona's bed, Ramona was in James' bed. The one thing different was Lucy, her and Ramona had become rather close. When James wasn't over, Lucy was. The two girls talked about everything, from James to their traumatic pasts.

Ramona realized that Lucy had many sides. Though she seemed like a typical southern belle, there was a lot to her. Lucy smoked as much as James, and cursed a lot more. If she stubbed her toe, she'd say every curse word in the book, and make up new ones.

"James and I have been having some problems. It's just like he's not really there," Lucy confided in Ramona as the girls laid on Lucy's bed. Her bed was large, the mattress sat on an old wire frame. Her comforter was a polka-dotted yellow, rippling around their bodies.

"Really?" Ramona asked, turning on her side to face Lucy. Ramona's stomach twisted into a knot, her eye twitching.

"He's just been off. I don't know, it's like everything I say sets him off. And when he looks at me, it's like I'm not there at all," Lucy said, staring at the ceiling as she spoke. "Has he been different with you?"

"No, not really. I mean, we haven't been hanging out as much, this week. Do you want me to talk to him?" Ramona asked, her blinks long and drawn out.

"No, no. It's probably nothing, maybe I'm overreacting," Lucy said, confusion strong in her voice. "It's just like he won't look at me. I purposefully put myself in his field of vision, and it's like he turns his head, so he doesn't have to look at me."

"He does that with me too sometimes. It might be stuff about his dad, you just have to ask him about it," Ramona said, trying to comfort Lucy. When James avoided looking at Ramona a month ago, it was because of Lucy. Ramona just hoped there wasn't another girl, and if there was another girl, she hoped it wasn't her.

"That's the thing, though. I try to talk to him, I ask him what's wrong, and he just pushes me away. It doesn't make sense, I don't get it, does he not trust me? I mean, he says he loves me, but he can't even confide in me," Lucy said, her eyebrows moving as she talked. Ramona felt sick hearing that James told Lucy he loved her, she just wasn't sure if it was true. "Do you think there's another girl?" Lucy asked, turning to face Ramona.

"I don't think there's another girl. James is complicated, and his fatal flaw is that he doesn't open up, and when he does; it's too late," Ramona told Lucy, trying to formulate words that would put Lucy at ease.

"It's just nerve racking. James tells you everything, and he doesn't even tell me half of it," Lucy said, "I'm constantly out of the loop. It's just confusing, I consider myself to be trustworthy. I don't gossip, I don't talk shit, I don't even know half the shit that goes on at school. I just don't understand why he would feel that he can't talk to me."

"Maybe he's worried you'll see him differently if he lets you in. James is far from perfect, and though is to be unconditional, he doesn't believe in that. The key to James is being there, even when he's shitty. He can be downright nasty, but when you stick through that, he trusts you a little more," Ramona said, the broken mirror incident running through her mind.

"Is that what it took for him to confide in you?" Lucy asked Ramona, hostility in Lucy's voice. "Do you wanna spend the night?"

"Yeah, sure. I just have to tell my parents," Ramona said, sitting up and grabbing her phone to text her parents.

"I'm going out for a smoke, but after do you want to have a drink?" Lucy asked. Her face was long, and Ramona noticed the dark circles under Lucy's eyes.