bad decisions

Chapter 1: The Meeting

Noah

I was sitting on the back patio for the fourth evening in a row, notebook in my lap, scribbling away. I took an edible about ten minutes ago, so I should be feeling it in twenty minutes or so. I was content to sit in my overthinking and anguish. Scribbling angrily into my book, feeling myself fester. Before I could get too deep into my own head, I heard the glass door slide open and sighed, dropping my pen and looking over my shoulder.

"What do you want Folio?" I asked, looking back to my notebook, "I don't need a lecture from you right now."

Sitting down in the chair to my left, Folio sighed, "No lecture, just wanting to check in."

"Well, you checked in. I'm fine," I said plainly, not looking up from my notebook, "You don't have to hover around me anymore."

"You've been dark recently, Noah. Darker than usual, and it's concerning. You don't go out unless you have to, you don't talk to anyone you don't have to. I'm not the only one worried about you, man. We all are," he sighed, running his hand through his dark hair.

"Don't gotta worry, I'm happy with where I am," I looked up to him through my eyebrows with a bored expression on my face.

He just sighed and shook his head before standing up. I heard the sliding door open again before he called over his shoulder, "I know she ruined you, Noah. You just chose to stay broken instead of healing. At some point it stops being her fault and starts being yours."

He closed the door behind him and I threw my notebook into the year before storming in after him.

"Fuck you Folio, you don't fucking understand what happened with my relationship," I raised my voice toward the end, "And I can say that with full fucking confidence, because even I don't understand what the fuck happend. Four goddamn years later, not a clue what happened or why I still fucking feel this way."

Before he could respond, I grabbed my keys, wallet, and coat before storming out the front door and slamming it behind me. My words echoed around in my head as I started walking. I was surprised I said them, but I was even more surprised that they were true. And it took until now to realize it. I shook my head and pulled my coat on around me to protect my bare arms from the chilly air. It was March and even though it was Los Angeles, it wouldn't warm up for the next couple weeks.

Still walking twenty minutes later, I realized the edible had hit me and I was breathing lighter than I had been before my argument with Folio. I also felt like the world wasn't so heavy as I walked. I pulled my headphones out of my coat pocket where I kept them, I plugged them into my ears and connected the bluetooth buds to my phone before putting my playlist on shuffle. I don't know how long it was, but I had gotten lost in the music as the air became dark and colder.

I startled out of my thoughts as the toe of my shoe caught a stonework border of a statue grouping outside of a high class office building. I growled to myself over almost busting my face and saw the flashlight on my phone blinking, letting me know I just got a notification. If it had been a text from one of the guys, my phone would've beeped so I'd know to ignore it, but it hadn't.

Saying, "Fuck it," to myself, under my breath, I opened the damned chunk of metal and glass to see an instagram notification from one of Ali's old friends. Checking it, hoping for some sign of the girl I had loved, I felt my heart drop to see some dim room with velvet chairs where Ali's friend Mellie sat with someone I didn't know, holding up their drinks and cheesing at the camera.

I sighed to myself, again, and decided I'd go to my old haunt and get belligerently drunk to forget about the fight with my best friend and the dead slow thump of the useless muscle in my chest.