stay (jenna ortega x female reader) AU (editing and revising)

chapter 19

hey guys. thank you for all the love on the story. i was going to end it there, but after reading all of your comments, i decided to continue it. hope i'm not too late :)

Your POV

3 months later

I collapsed onto a gray quilt that covered my new place of slumber and felt my body being swallowed by the unfamiliar mattress. I was on the verge of exhaustion, with the hours of plane to taxi travel taking a toll on my physical and mental well-being. Outside of the tiny studio apartment, taxi horns blared in a never ending war of blaming the shittier of two drivers. Distant yelling from a few doors down let the other residents of the apartment building know of a not-so-healthy relationship, and just a few doors after that you could enjoy the muffled hum of a trumpet being violently berated. I had the naïve mindset that allowed me to think I knew what living in a big city was like, but the crowded bustle of downtown New York had humbled me.

I kicked my shoes off and crawled further into the bed. I dug my face into the pillow and let my tensed body give into the inviting comforter. It was around 2pm, yet my eyes weighed more than the weight of leaving home for college. It was difficult, to say the least, to bid farewell to my mom, Maddie and Eddie. They were all I'd ever known, and now I was alone in a foreign country.

However, I did know of one person in America.

I rolled over on the mattress, suddenly awake at the thought of Jenna. I stared at the ceiling fan slowly gliding through the air, with an abruptly hollow heart. I felt a lump building in the back of my throat, and my chest tightened.

I remember the morning she left like it was yesterday. I remember how we were oddly quiet, and how I was stalling every way I could, asking her if she had a certain item though I already knew the answer. I remember how the pit of dread in my stomach began the second we set foot in the train station, and how I knew it would consume me during the inevitable future. I remember the hook of our pinkies together as I made her promise to call, and how she gave a hollow head nod in agreement. I remember the struggle to let go of her grasp as we hugged tightly, and how my vision blurred with the tears that appeared suddenly and soaked the crook of her neck I buried my head in. I remember how she had to practically pry me off of her as the last whistle blew through the air, the air that was suddenly hard to consume from the tightness of my chest, and how my watery eyes stayed glued on her figure as she boarded the train. I remember the abrupt emptiness of my mind and body, the emptiness that was once occupied by her, and how the scar of her absence would be visible for the rest of my life. I remember how I stood silently crying on the landing, and the disbelief that daunted me once I saw the train disappear into the horizon. I remember relying on the call from her saying she landed, and how the call never came.

Jenna and I hadn't spoken since the day she left Greece. To say I was a mess about it didn't do the anxious thoughts that had eaten me up the rest of the summer justice. I felt betrayed, as her empty promise to call had cut me open to let the blood and tears of her absence mix and flow down my body as she once did. I was angry, angry and jealous that she did not care as much as I, angry at her unawareness of the gravity she had on my being. Her ignorance of the fact I felt sick from the intense churning that boiled in my stomach ever since she stepped on the train. Most of all, I missed her. I missed the touch of her lips being planted at every inch and crevice of my skin, I missed the seemingly endless nights of us talking about everything and nothing at all, and I missed looking at her flawlessly crafted face.