fake it til you make it | greta van fleet

a kind stranger | four

THIS PART CONTAINS EXPLICIT SMUT.

It would have been nice to say that life went on after Josh had walked out of it. But, you would have been lying. That wasn't to say you couldn't function without the man who'd swept in and out of your life so quickly, so carelessly, because you could. You kept your head up, and you kept working, and you did your best to move on.

It just really fucking sucked. If you had to put it into words, it was quite like a B.C.E and C.E. scenario. Except, it would have been Before Josh and After Josh.

He came into your life so suddenly and left just as fast. If you were honest, it was almost hard to remember what you'd done with yourself before he came around. You'd devoted so much time and energy to him, and now you were left with all of this empty space.

Your boss was happy, at the very least. No longer were you showing up late–though you did call in the following day after your fight with Josh. Could you really call it a fight? It wasn't much of an argument, really, it was more of a sudden loss.

Your old routine was hard to fall back into. You woke up to your alarm each day at six o'clock on the dot, got ready for work on autopilot, drove to work with the bare minimum of consciousness, and dragged ass until you got off at five o'clock. Afterward, you drove home with the same level of attention to detail, ate dinner, and then laid in bed until the early hours of the morning when you finally succumbed to exhaustion.

It was so boring. Your mind had gotten so accustomed to the constant stimulation that came with having Josh Kiszka in your life. While you used to constantly be conversing with him in some way or another, nowadays your days were quite... stale.

Marjorie and Beth tried their hardest to be there for you, but at the end of the day, they were still in the dark as to what really happened. When you'd let them know the following morning that things had ended suddenly with Josh, they'd been blindsided. Beth had even broken her token stoicism to voice her astonishment, quite passionately, and Marjorie had been her usual self–loud, over the top, and emotional.

Maybe it was wrong, or pathetic even, for you to keep up the lies. You were embarrassed, though, and couldn't bring yourself to tell them the truth. The thought of admitting that there'd never even been a relationship at all sent chills down your spine, your belly twisting up in anxious knots.

So, you lied and said he broke up with you out of the blue. Considering Josh had all but declared the friendship to be over, you'd been a little petty, too. You'd thrown his desires for an amicable separation out the window, instead being honest that it was not a mutual decision in the slightest.

All that being said, you really missed him. You missed the days that he would randomly show up to your office shortly before your lunch break, coffee in hand. You missed the late-night conversations that most often lacked any sense of direction or sense in general. You missed his voice, his laugh, his touch. Most of all, though, you missed his presence.

As much as you wanted to believe there would come a time that you'd forget all about him, and the hurt of losing him, you were pretty sure you wouldn't. Josh just had this aura, this pervasive sense of home, and comfort, and love that radiated from him. You'd never met anyone before who put you at ease so easily, without even trying, and you were nearly certain you'd never find that in another person.

Whoever won his heart, for real, would be a lucky person.

"Are you sure you don't want one of us to stay?" Beth asked, eyes following you wearily as you lingered on the doorstep of your apartment complex. "It's okay to not want to be alone, you know. We're here for you."

Marjorie hiccuped, nodding lethargically as she leaned heavily onto Beth. You raised a brow, looking pointedly from Beth to the very intoxicated woman relying on her to remain standing, and she cringed. "I'll be fine. I think she needs supervision a little more than me, mom." you joked, "It's been two weeks, Beth. Really, I'll be okay."