Love, me.

Uncertainty

Rae

The giggling and hushed conversations woke me up as a sliver of light entered from the crack of the curtains in my room. Realising that I had allowed my phone to be completely drained of battery, I reached over to my bedside table to retrieve its charger. My eyes landed on a photo frame that I had left facedown in the last two months. A pang of guilt settled in my belly as I thought about the people in the photo; it was a photograph of Erik and myself at a community event taken three years ago.

Memories brought me back to the event where Erik and I were first introduced to each other by mutual friends. I had just gone through a breakup and was open to meeting new people, or at least that was what my group of close friends decided for me. Erik was four year older and his affable nature and sense of responsibility made him well-respected by the community, on top of his commitment to the little village we lived in. Older people loved him as he would always find time to stop for a chat, heck, even my parents loved him! Every time I went home for a visit, he would always organise a hiking trip with our group of friends into the mountains which I loved, where the views I would never grow sick of.

Eight months ago, he asked if I would be interested in starting a relationship with him, which I agreed to, to the delight of my friends and family. It started off great as we spent the next three weeks doing everything a couple would, but when I left to go back to work, it felt like we slipped back to a platonic friendship once more. 

It certainly did not help when a certain tanned, athletic person came into my life, and messed up my head. I was rather unsure what about her rattled me so much, and caused me to feel emotions that I did not recognise.

"Rae! Wake up!" My housemate burst into my room, flinging the curtains apart, jolting me out of my thoughts. "What should we do today? Considering that we never ever spent time together anymore since you rotated into the Intensive Care Unit."

Groaning, I got out from under my duvet and went to the window. Signs of Spring were evident with cherry blossoms popping out on the trees outside my room. Shoving her out, I dragged my feet after her into the coffee-scented kitchen where Veronica was engrossed in her phone.

The three of us had decided to move in together after hitting off really well when we met each other in school. They had practically been with me from my last breakup to my new relationship to Erik.

"How's Erik?" Irene quizzed, as she propped herself on the kitchen island beside me. 

My thoughts flitted back to the conversation we had last night where we spent fifteen minutes catching up and the next hour sitting in silence and occasional comments whilst he busied himself with drawing the characters of his next project. Yes, my Erik was quite a talented artist and he was recruited by one of the top illustration companies in the country. I was bored by the lack of communication and how he never seemed to be bothered by our silence, although when we were physically together, silence was never a thing. We eventually said goodnight to each other as I pretended that I was really tired from a week's of work when all I wanted to do was be lost in my own private thoughts.

"We're fine, we chatted till really late last night hence I slept in today, or at least tried to until you burst into my room." I smirked as I nudged her away from the coffee machine to make myself a new cup of liquid gold.

"Should we all head out together tonight? It's been a long time since we hung out together, and I have got two extra tickets to a gig that I really want to go to!" Irene begged.

The last thing I wanted to do was to go to a gig filled with noisy, drunken people, but I really needed to focus my mind on something else before I did something wrong.

"Sure! Let's go grab pizza before too!" I answered, almost too excitedly before two deafening squeals filled my ears and my housemates sandwiched me in a big group hug, looking forward to the night ahead.