Chance Collisions [DISCONTINUED]

3 // Fire & Gold

Chapter 3

Thanksgiving was never a fun holiday to spend alone, especially with a barely written thesis due in the coming days. It also didn't really help much that snow had begun trickling down and it was only in due time that the city would be blanketed in white frost. Sitting against my window sill with a laptop resting against my thighs, I stared out into the ever growing white wonderland outside and to the careless children below building snow fortresses and outlining angels with their bodies.

I never regretted moving into an apartment complex that boasted a high family percentage. It was nice to run into them in the elevators or see them in the vacant lots of makeshift playgrounds. They were like little reminders of a wondrous youth and sometimes I couldn't help but want to escape back into that world of simple decisions and emotions. There were a few young adults like myself sprinkled in between the floors. One of them being Juliette, a fellow senior at a local liberal arts university. She lived across the hall and we had become quick friends when I had stumbled in slightly intoxicated one night late last year after a rejection from a publisher that I didn't take quite delicately. The rest is kinda history.

Any other day, I would go bother the petite redhead and complain to her that no one really needed a ten page essay on the progression of British literature in the 18th century, but she had recently left for destination sunny California for festivities and family. At the ever so slight mention of the the word, I was hit with a bombardment of overwhelming thoughts. In two days time, it would be the fifth year since the last proper Thanksgiving dinner. Do my parents even miss me? They never cared when I was in their lives. I highly doubted they showed any more concern now that I wasn't.

I wasn't going to deny the ping of jealousy I had towards Juliette whose family life seemed ideal and wholesome. I had more punctures and wounds in mine that if given a thousand years, it still wouldn't be even close to being patched up. However, I learned at a young age that some things, as much as they used to mean to you, were just meant to be left broken.

A meow sounded from the other room and I got up from my reminiscent posture to fetch Bushels. Perched on her two back paws, she wailed at the cupboard as I entered the kitchen. I rolled my eyes at the fur ball before picking her up into my arms.

"What did I tell you about scratching the cabinets?" I half scolded her as she buried her head into my chest in shame. "You're lucky you're cute." I said softer, scratching behind her ears. Placing her back on to the ground, I went to go pour food into her bowl and after receiving a satisfied purr from Bushels, I left momentarily to Juliette's to feed her goldfish Finny ("I'm a painter. I'm creative with a brush. Not with pet names," She once vocalized to me).

After both Bushels and Finny were properly fed, I plunged back into a half written third chapter. (The thesis could wait a little bit longer. Procrastination at its finest.) However, before Cassidy and Oliver could exchange proper introductions, The Great Escape decided to introduce itself with a blare from my bedside table.

A face lit up the screen and as I fell into a close enough line of sight, I realized it was Bryce calling. Almost instantaneously, I grabbed ahold of the phone, slid the bar to answer and flopped onto my bed.

"Since when did Bryce Saunders make house calls?" I teased before he even got a chance to say hello.

"Can't a guy ring up his best friend on a random Tuesday afternoon?" The voice asked on the other line and I could sense a smile even though I couldn't visibly see it.

"You were never much of a caller Bryce. I would know. I've spent practically a whole lifetime with you."

"Touché. But I had to reach you somehow. Knowing you, you're too busy engrossed in the world of your new book to reply to a text. Thought enlisting Boys Like Girls would help my situation."