What's a Heart to a Soul

1.8 Festive Five

I saw the in between in brief black and white glimpses. Trying to hold it together every second while feeling like a paper mache statue in thousand mile an hour winds that whipped through my soul. Vegetating in my bed as I stared into the nothing I felt while Anna was telling me a story I couldn't hear over the mute setting programmed into the depths of my brain. My eyes felt heavy, my body consumed by a never ending dull ache originating in my chest as I tried to focus on the lesson. I reached up and pulled at the strings of my hoodie, tightening the hood around my face. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket so I pulled it out and glanced down at it, careful to keep it low enough to not be seen.

FFF: Can we please try to work this out?

The tension in my chest tightened as I read the thirteenth text she'd sent since I saw her. Part of me wanted to reply but all of me had no idea what to say. I looked back up and I was now seated at the counter in Devin's kitchen with a glass of eggnog in my hand. I looked at my torso and saw I was wearing a hideous Christmas sweater with Santa's demented face sewn into it.

God this is an all time low.

"Merry Christmas Eve." Her voice cut through my thoughts like an exacto knife.

I tilted my head up to meet her intense icy gaze "Merry Christmas Eve Devin."

"Did you get my texts?" She half whispered looking around as though our families could overhear.

Guess she's going with the direct approach here as usual.

I nodded and looked away as I took a sip of my eggnog.

"I miss you." She mumbled, close enough that her vanilla scent invaded every cell of my brain.

I bit my lip and shook my head "Devin why are you doing this to me?"

"Doing what?" She questioned louder than I she'd meant.

We both looked around and a few people had glanced over at us.

I smiled, acting like everything was fine but muttered through gritted teeth "Making it even harder than it already is to get over you."

She turned her face away from the onlookers for only me to see, a contorted pain behind her eyes "I don't want you to get over me Blake."

"Devin, could I maybe borrow you for a moment?" I half growled taking her by the wrist as I dragged her to the entryway and then up the stairs.

She pulled her arm from my grasp once in her room and whisper yelled "Can you please slow the fuck down?"

I was barely listening to her as my gaze settled on her bed, a new red and black comforter I'd never seen before covering it. The memory still ripped through me like a shotgun to the chest.

"I couldn't even stand to sleep in those sheets." She mumbled so quietly it could've been to herself "I regret it so much I can't even begin to explain it to you."

"I think you should try." It came out so wavered I don't even know if I meant it.

She let out a breath and bit her tongue as she stood deep in thought, "I just missed you so much and I just felt so alone. I got paired with her for a stupid capstone project and it just sort of happened."

"You have interesting luck with project partners." I stated looking at the tan carpet below.

"Blake," she started saying as she reached out to take my hand that I instantly retracted leaving her looking like a hurt child "I know I fucked up but I really think we can work through this. I'm willing to do whatever I need to do to make this work so please just give me something, anything to work with here."