THE FLOW

Issue #003

I'd never seen her so broken up. She sat on the couch for hours, not moving a single muscle, staring at the ceiling. An occasional tear would fall down the side of her face, but she never made a sound. She looked like a severely catatonic schizophrenic patient. It took hours for me to convince her to shower, the shower she sat in so long that I had to physically check on her. I've never seen her this ruined before.

"Do you want to talk about it," I softly ask, standing as far away from her bed as I can.

No answer.

Yesterday, the one thing nobody ever imagined in a million years happened, even after that argument they had where she left. Nobody thought it'd ever really end. Nelly and DeVante broke up in the most sudden of ways I've ever heard of. I don't know why and I doubt I'll ever get a completed sentence about it out of her for a long time. This morning, Jared caught word from DeVante and I raced to her first place, the one she offered me to stay in when I initially moved here alone. I knocked on the door for sixty full seconds. She only answered once I revealed my identity. Even then, she just lied on the couch for hours without much of anything.

I can't take seeing her like this.

"Okay, well, if you need anything then I'll be in the living-room..." I shuffle out of her room and take a seat on the sofa, cutting the television on to kill the heartbreaking silence.

I've seen her go through hard break ups, ones where she locked herself in the studio for weeks. Yet, I've never seen her not move. It's obvious her world has come to a dead halt, as did my own when I got the news because my own anxieties have been birthed by this unfortunate event. Behind my shock, behind my worries about Nelly, behind my worries about DeVante, you can find my frazzled nerves regarding what kind of position Jared and I are now in.

The date went well. The date went very well, actually. Our bond strengthened at the same rate our romantic connection did so we did it again, and again, and again. Enjoying the freedom of exploring our moment without external forces working with or against us, we intentionally chose to keep it on the hush. This week was supposed to be the week we spoke out but after this, Nelly and DeVante exploding the way they have, we can't do that. I don't think Nelly even wants to see a pitbull on tv right now, let alone a DeGrate in person. I'm sure DeVante can relate.

Backed into a corner with no idea what to do, I sit and try to think about how long we'll have to hide our dating from our peers. We're not in a relationship yet, as nothing is set in stone, so we do have a little wiggle room. Nevertheless, I like Jared and I want to be with him. I can't do that if I have to hide him. He called me earlier. Twice, he called me twice, and I felt like a real bitch when I had to take the battery out of my phone to keep him silenced.

Nelly comes around the corner and stops. "Hey," she wryly calls to me.

I jump right up in my seat. "Yeah?"

"Can you stay the night?"

My gut tightens as I examine the puffiness in her nose, eyes, and swollen lips. "Of course," I somberly pledge. "Do you need anything?"

"No."

"Okay..." I say, watching her disappear around the corner again.

Alone again, I look around the around the room and sigh as I begin to predict the side effects of this dissolution. I'm placed in a thinly packed space with little to no leeway, something like a coffin placed in a European mausoleum. Jared's trapped in the slot directly beneath me, his own confinements holding him down in the same situation.

Anyone can question how this kind of an external event has such a huge impact on my own brewing romance. That person would be redlining their self as an outsider to my main social circle. The sun's caved into a black hole, the exact duo that brought Jared and I together causing a major shift in our everyday social interactions. Vacation were taken on her jet and his dime, studio sessions on his dime with her cooking, familial functions at their big, fancy residence. Their union is the core of how we all operate. The kingdom collapses without the king and queen in the castle.