happiness is a butterfly | abby littman x matt press

Part 14

Abby had gotten kind of depressed after she ended things with Matt. No, she was extremely depressed. It had been a whole week and all she had done was lay in bed miserably, only getting up to pee. After her parents had that intervention with her, her mom had made an effort for the two of them to sit down and have dinner every night, but she didn't leave her room for that either. She claimed to have come down with a cold, but from the pitying looks her mom gave her while setting food on her nightstand that always remained untouched, she could tell it was more than that.

Abby wondered if her friends were worried about her, she hadn't been checking her text messages at all. Mostly she just watched Euphoria and cried. She couldn't even enjoy her favorite show anymore because she saw too much of her and Matt's relationship in Nate and Maddy's.

Abby went back to school on Monday. She walked into the building wearing the baggiest sweatshirt she owned and some comfortable leggings. It wasn't exactly her best outfit but she didn't have the energy for fashion right now. Besides, there wasn't much else she could wear that would hide the drastic amount of weight she had lost in the past week. It was the one plus about being depressed, you can't bring yourself to do anything, including eating.

"Oh my god, Abby! I missed you so much, are you feeling better now?" Max raced over to Abby the second she spotted her, swallowing her in a bear hug.

"I was only sick for a week, no need to act like I'm dying." If she was honest, she kind of did feel like she was dying.

"I know, but a week without you feels like a lifetime." Max whined.

Abby smiled. "I missed you too, you little drama queen."

Abby reluctantly dragged herself to class. When she saw the amount of work she had to make up, she instantly wanted to go back to bed. She felt a little better about it once Ginny invited her over to her house after school so they could do homework together.

Throughout the day, Abby made eye contact with Matt seven times. Yes, she counted. Each time, she was the first to look away. Abby wondered if their "break up" was affecting him as much as her. She refused to call it a breakup because they were never even together. It wasn't real. But it certainly felt real.

-

Abby and Ginny were in Ginny's living room with their laptops out as if they were working on schoolwork, but in reality they were just sitting and doing nothing.

"Do you ever look at Renaissance paintings and get concerned for the people in the fifteen hundreds? Because the way they painted babies and shit back then makes me think something was afoot." Ginny pondered.

Abby stared at her blankly. "You lost me at Renaissance paintings."

Ginny laughed. "Sorry, I've just been interested in art lately because of Marcus."

"Are you two back together or something?"

Ginny shifted on the couch. "No, we're still broken up. I'm just trying to get in his head."

Abby sighed. "Yeah, I know how that feels."

Ginny twisted her head to look at her. "What does that mean?"

"Just that I try to get inside people's heads a lot." Abby explained. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth. It didn't really matter, Abby lied more than she told the truth at this point.

"Hmm. I do too. It's interesting, guessing the way people think."

"Yeah. But since people are so unpredictable, you probably won't be accurate most of the time. Unless you're a therapist or something." Abby chewed on her pencil.