The Arrangement

Chapter Seventeen

It feels like falling off that cliff was the crash, the wave finally coming down in a large crash that has given me a moment to breathe now before it comes back to swallow me under. There's no guide on how frequent they'll be, much like the rest of this chaos I know it'll depend on the person and with Christmas closer than comfortable, I don't give myself much time.

The lessening of that pummelling pressure in the centre of my chest reminds me of the exhilaration that coursed through my veins when Hugo and I went swinging yesterday.

"I know Cassie wasn't here with us often but it's weird knowing she's in another state" Rosie sighs, face tilted up towards the sky with her legs stretched out across the floor of the balcony. It's a small miracle that the sun has found us, when by the time we got home it was late beyond belief and rain was battering against the windscreen.

It's a touchy subject, not because we aren't all swallowed by relief that she finally cut the cord, it's the revelation that this melancholy we feel for this temporary separation will only become more permanent as time passes. When life drags us apart and squashes our free time into one day every three months, it's the realities of growing up that seems to suffocate us now.

The seasoning from the salt and vinegar chips coat my fingers, adding a tang to the slide of camembert cheese that I slap in the middle of the chip and kabana. Rosie might not be able to look at my concoction without the threat of vomit, but it has yet to kill my desire for it. Despite the fact that the warmth of the sun threatens to melt my favourite snack, and the burn of constant exposure against my legs.

"Do you think they will get back together?" Imogen asks, brown eyes staring unblinking at the sparce golden leaves that continue to hold on. Question soft in the quiet that settles around us. Squashed onto the small balcony of the second floor, and bathing in the warmth of the sun even as the wind steals the feeling.

There's a certain validity to her question even if it feels cruel to vocalise it, "Seemed pretty set on it" I murmur, pretending I don't notice the way multi-coloured eyes find me in an instant. "Being out there without someone crushing her happiness... why would anyone want to come back to the feeling of being minimised"

Sometimes it feels like they're waiting for me to crack a joke, alleviate the tension with some cracked remark that somehow only makes sense because it comes from me. I find myself searching for something funny to say amidst the silence, desperate for a joke to make them look at me like they used too.

Even if as time goes on, I wonder if I lost that part in all of it, the relaxation that followed me around and the lack of severity that laced all aspects of my life that wasn't degree orientated. Like the unending task of catching up on my neglect has sucked all the fun from my body and left me as this cold and calculated lawyer that doesn't care what you've left your family.

Bitterness coats my veins like poison, that cases and trials float all around me and all of these people are enraged by what they were left. When I would give up at least two limbs to have been left anything in the wake of his leaving.

"I guess for the same reason that kept her with him even when she knew it was over, that she deserved better. Leaving isn't simple, not when someone was supposed to love you, used to love you and then changed" Sophie sighs, taking a long gulp of her drink. "If there is one thing, we all missed about Mark, it was just how manipulative he was. I mean the guy didn't even care when we all stopped inviting and talking to him"

"The boys are quite pissed about it" Imogen muses, hazel eyes flickering back to us. "I mean they all spent more time with him than we did, strangely I thought they wouldn't have been bothered"

"It's the male bravado thing" Rosie nods, braiding the thin ends of her auburn hair into messy knots as the world spins on around us, contained in our bubble of gossip. "Makes it seem like they have no emotion in those firm shells"