When I Came Back

Chapter 4: Tension

I woke up in a daze, blinking my eyes open trying to focus. I remembered I was on Sam's couch, and I slowly sat up and looked around. My head didn't hurt as bad as I thought, and I got up to use the restroom and fix myself.

I put my hair in a ponytail and and wiped some smeared makeup off from my eyes. I checked the time, it was only 8. I sighed and wondered what I was going to do until Kat and Sam got up, they normally don't wake up till like 10.

I decided to Uber and get some coffee, so I left a note on the counter and grabbed my purse and headed out the door. As I shut it behind me I looked down the hall to see Colby walking back towards his room. That was good timing.
"Hey" he said as he got closer, "are you leaving?"

I shook my head. "Well I'm staying with Kat right now so I was going to wait for her to get up, I was just going to get some coffee."

"Oh" Colby said, "alone?"

I smiled. "No I'm going with my imaginary friend, yeah I'm going alone."

I started walking and as I took my phone out of my purse to get an Uber I noticed Colby beside me.

"Can I go with you?" He asked, and I stopped walking.

"I mean if you want, did you want to invite Cassie?" I asked.

He looked at me blankly for a second before shaking his head.

"Uh, no actually I just dropped her off at work" he said as we started walking again.
"Oh where does she work?" I asked.

"She works for a modeling agency."

"Oh nice" I said, cringing on the inside. Of course she was a model.

"Hey if you want I can drive" he said, seeming to want to change the subject. "Alright" I said.

We made our way to his car and I got in, the whole thing seeming so familiar. I missed this.

He got in and we pulled off into the road, the silence becoming too unbearable.
He finally cleared his throat.
"So how'd the rest of the night go?" He asked.

"It was really fun. I seriously have the best friends" I said, "I didn't expect that at all."

It was silent again. I grabbed my phone and started trolling Instagram. It felt so awkward and it wasn't coming from me. It felt weird that I was in a car with him about to hang out when we hadn't seen each other in a year, and it felt so different.

Colby had changed a lot. He had been working out more, he was tan, he had his hair dyed differently than when I saw him last which suited him well. I found myself looking at him and he looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" He said with a small smile.
Dang I was caught.

"Nothing, I just missed you" I said also with a small smile. I kept my eyes on him as he looked over at me, his smile faltering slightly before growing into a bigger one. His eyes went back to the road.

"I missed you too."

I looked away and leaned against the window. My heart felt happy. I could tell he wasn't just saying it back because I said it, I knew he meant it. At least he didn't just forget about me.

We got to the coffee bean and we went in and ordered our drinks. We sat down at a small table in the corner and I sipped on my maple latte.

"Man I missed this" I said as I took another sip.

I felt Colby watching me and I looked up to see him smiling at me from across the table.
"What?" I said, pretending to mock him.
"Nothing" He said, still just smiling. I rolled my eyes.

I didn't like that we didn't have anything to talk about. I know it might be a little awkward to see someone after so long, but everyone else was fine with me. And like I said before, the tension wasn't coming from me, I didn't know why he was acting like that.

I started making casual conversation with him, asking him how his channel was going and if him and Sam had any plans for videos coming up. He finally started to talk more, telling me about what they had planned.

I told him I went on a hike to a spooky old building with a friend of mine back home and that I got something really scary on a video.

"No way, you should post it" he said.
I shrugged. "Eh, it was like 6 months ago, it's kind of old now."

"Why didn't you tell me about it?" He asked.

I couldn't help but look at him blankly.

"Well if you didn't notice Colby you kinda stopped talking to me" I blurted out, immediately catching myself.

I watched Colby's eyes look at me in shock, I had never really snipped at him before.
"I'm sorry that came out wrong-"

"No it's fine, you're right" Colby said, his eyes lowering.

There was a pause.

"I'm sorry."

I wanted to ask him why but I didn't know if I wanted to know.

"I'm sorry too. I can show you the video sometime if you want" I said while looking at my hands that were gripped around my coffee mug.

We slowly got back to talking again, and by the time we got up to leave we were joking around again like old times. It wasn't perfectly comfortable, but it was a good start.

A part of me had hope that it would go back to normal, but most of me knew that Colby wasn't going to tell his girlfriend he hung out with me today, because she would get mad and jealous.

That's just how girls are, and I knew she would be just by the looks she had given me. This meant that we wouldn't hang out as much if not really at all like we use to, and I had pretty much accepted that. We were going to be acquaintances now.