Mint [H.S.]

22

One Line - PJ Harvey

As in the streets we fight. This world all gone to war. All I need is you tonight.

ISABELLA

It's funny how easy it is to fall back into a routine. Wake up...eat breakfast... walk and walk some more... eat lunch... and then spend the rest of my time at Hemmingway'sBooks, getting lost in a world that was unlike my own. This had become my routine during the days when Jaz had been working at the hair salon and no wedding prep needed to be made. 

It wasn't as if I minded. There was something almost calming about getting lost in a city that I once called my own. A place where I ran away to and fell in love. There are days where I find myself forgetting that I used to roam Oxford Circus with Jaz and look at all the shops, or go to Hyde park and sit and read. Even though I had called this country... this city... my home for the almost two full years that I claimed residence here, I still felt like an outsider. 

But today... no, today... it was different. I felt like one of the locals, blending in with the crowd as I found my regular spot in the grassy fields of Hyde Park. With my rucksack on my back and my blanket in my hand, I found a small area that had not been occupied by the many students or young families that had been crowding the large park. 

I pulled out The Adventures of Tom Sawyer from my rucksack as well as a bottle of water. The sun had been warm on this late June afternoon. I didn't mind though. It felt nice against my cool skin. With my head against the blanket and a pair of sunglasses blocking the rays, I relaxed against the blanket. 

As I exhaled slowly, my mind wandered to the weekend that was fast approaching. The wedding was two weeks away, but the wedding celebrations were in need to commence. I felt the wave of anxiety that I tried my damnedest to push away seep up into my veins. 

I knew that Harry was coming to the wedding. This had been revealed to me last night by a very nervous and very stuttering Jaz. She had come home late that evening with a bottle of merlot and a carton of green Thai curry in the other. A deadly combination that was only used when something awful or incredibly heart wrenching needed to be disclosed to me. Wine and Thai were my "safety net"... the comfort blanket that I needed to protect me when things weren't going to go my way. It was what I had downed the first week when I learnt of Harry's disappearance. It was what I needed to get me through my finals during my university days, and the times I had to go back home. 

When Jaz had rushed into her apartment with those in hand, I knew that something was going to happen. Something that I wasn't going to be emotionally ready for ... and I was right. 

"He's coming to the engagement party. Ben found out last night. I didn't... I didn't know he was going to. I thought it was only the wedding, if that. I'm so sorry Iz. I'm so, so sorry." She had pleaded that relentlessly that she didn't know and that if she did, she would have told Ben not to invite him. 

But I was quick to refuse such things. Harry was Ben's brother, his only one at that. I would never in my right mind feel remotely okay if I knew that I was holding Harry back from building a relationship with his brother. If I was the reason why he wasn't at the engagement party... I would never forgive myself. Regardless of how hard it would be on me... how frightening and emotionally unstable that it made me whenever I thought about him (whenever he came to mind, really), this was Ben and Jaz's day. Not mine.

I was going to be okay. I had to be okay. I had to move on because he was already doing that. I couldn't nor would I purposefully do anything to ruin their day. I had to put on my big girl panties, as much as I refused to do so, and fake it. Fake that my heart didn't break whenever I thought of his name, or the apprehension that rattled my bones when I pictured his face... his eyes... his lips on my mouth. I needed to hold myself together... because he changed his number and he had left. He was gone. I needed to accept that.