Make Me Whole

Chapter 03

Chapter 03 - Felix

She's ruining my damn life.

I feel like the frustrated eight-year-old who couldn't hold a stick and skate simultaneously without face-planting every few seconds. Except now I'm twenty-four, and my livelihood depends on that ability being sharp.

So, with sweat blanketing my body in a gross sheen, I don't stop running until the only thing I can think about is how I'm going to fix all the mistakes that added to the clusterfuck of a performance last night. We were against the Florida Gators, also known as one of the shittiest teams in the league. I missed shots I should be able to hit in my sleep and I couldn't stop thinking about why so much there was no way to enjoy the party thrown to celebrate the win—and trust me, I tried.

What certainly didn't help was when Finn got tipsy he said how he and Drew were trying to find ways to cheer Rome up, like she isn't a full-grown woman who can cheer her-damn-self up if she so wants.

I know it's immature, but my reaction to any Rome talk is to walk away. If anyone brings her up, I walk out. This has sent the message to both Finn and Drew to not talk about her in front of me unless they want me to go.

I check the watch around my wrist that tracks the workout to see how my run is tracking. Since my game has been thrown off I've been pushing my body to an extent that probably isn't all that healthy, and leaning into running. Looking at the face, I see the run is nearing my ten-k, with only a few hundred metres left and I'm on track to finish in just under fifty minutes, a decent time for me.

With my house in sight, I leg it, using up everything left in my tank until I'm pretty sure I'm going into heart failure.

I've got about half an hour to clean up and get my ass to Finn's for our weekly dinner. It's nothing insane, usually just Finn trying to get better at cooking and Drew and I being the—sometimes unfortunate—test subjects.

In the shower, my muscles slowly unwind as I scrub the sticky sweat from my body.

Still frustrated with myself I want to beep at every person who drives below the speed limit, and every person who doesn't indicate to change lanes. I'm on a hair trigger. I'm a taunt elastic band ready to snap at the next thing to test me.

The last time—and only other time—I've been so fucking angry and frustrated was when she left, when our friendship that spanned a decade was blown up, destroyed irrevocably. She had left, then come back and had to fuck with my life before just leaving again, and now she thinks she can waltz back in and have everyone accept her back with open arms? Well, everyone else may be falling for her shit but I'm not going to. Rome has had everything handed to her, she grew up as a spoilt brat, from the day she was born she was set to inherit so much that her great-great-grandchildren will likely be set for life.

She had a golden spoon stuck in her mouth and the power to do anything, yet she chose to follow in the footsteps of someone she vowed never to be like.

Rome ignored everyone telling her that her mother was an awful woman, and left us all behind while travelling around on private jets, meeting all the A-list celebrities you could imagine. She graced magazine covers, was featured in music videos and had cameos in blockbuster hits—all of the things she claimed to hate. She exchanged her friends and family, the people who loved her, for people with ample money and fame. She dropped us in favour of the actors winning Oscars and musicians winning Grammys.

The Rome I thought I knew died when she left, I was so desperate for her to come back that when she did come back, that first time, I forgave and forgot her leaving. I pretended that year never happened. There were only a few weeks where it felt like life was right again, before she couldn't keep her damn hands to herself.