𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐄 - 𝐉𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐀 𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒

distant (j.o)

*updated :)

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i return home with my arms burdened in groceries, my fingers red from the plastic handles digging into my skin. it feels like the weight of the week had been collected into those bags and making things ache—much more than my hands. i'd been go-go-go practically all week with no breaks or pauses. i'm barely even catching a second to breathe, let alone having time to see her.

shes been buried in her work, her days blending and morphing into one as she films for our new scream movie. i thought spending time on set with would bring us closer so we're a chance to be side by side again. but all it's done is show us how our paths seem to drift further and further apart. our characters barely even have any scenes together. and when i'm not on set (since i don't have too many scenes), i'm always out grabbing things for our temporary apartment while i can.

it wasn't always like this. we fell into each other so effortlessly back when we first filmed scream v. it was like magic then. everything had gone so smoothly when we first got together. we carved out time from impossibly packed schedules, finding little pockets of freedom just to exist together.

we'd do late-night dinners under cheap and dimly lit diners in north carolina at the kind of places where no one knew us or cared, where we could just be us. we'd sneak into each other's trailers when everyone else had been getting ready. sometimes, we'd even sneak over to each others temporary apartments then, having our bodies tangled underneath thin blankets along either of our couches that smelled like fresh laundry and a promising future as we binge watched stupid reality shows. just all cute little things you do when you first get with someone.

sure, we were very cliché. so much so that it sounded so irritating if you were to explain it to others. it sounded like every perfect love story you'd hear from those stupid reality shows that were probably made up anyways.

but lately, we've been so distant and estranged. it feels like we're fonpletely slipping away, like the version of what we once were is just a ghost lingering in corners, fading as time moves on.

love doesn't quite feel the same anymore. of course, i still love her. more than anything. i love her more than i love myself. but lately, it's as if we're reaching for something that's just beyond our grasp. it's like we're on the verge of potentially losing it all one day. and it scares me. it terrifies me in a way that knots my stomach and twists my heart. its the only thing i feared most in the whole world—besides bugs. i hate bugs. literally everybody knows how much i hate those little mother fuckers.

with plastic grocery bags dangling from my hands, i cautiously press the 5th floor button as i go up the elevator in our apartment complex. the ride is agonizingly slow. i feel as the small box lifts me up, and it's like the bags of food are getting heavier and heavier before i feel the motor come to a slow stop, followed by the ding of the elevator doors opening.

once i step out just shortly after the ding, the dimly lit hallway stretched out long before me, passing by all the other doors with either keyholes or pins,my shoes shuffling along the gray carpet as i make out the scent of somebody's leftover takeout that was definitely from almost a week ago.

at the end of the hallway resided me and jenna's apartment. its been a joy living with her, and not to get ahead of myself, but i could see a future of us living together. i really enjoy it. just gotta straighten a few things out first.

as i made my way down, i shift all the bags to one arm, making my hand a bit more free to punch in the four-digit pin code along the door to i could enter the sanctuary of our temporary home.