WHAT I NEED ( A Johnny Gaudreau Fanfic)

THREE

AVA

At noon the three of us girls dragged our folding pool chairs out the small strip of sand between the gravel and the lake and spread them out. Removing our thin tops to reveal bikinis and relaxed into the chairs. It was mid-July and the heat was sweltering and made all clothing feel almost like second skin. I sighed gently, pulling my sunglasses over my eyes and revelling in the soft cool breeze blowing in from the water. It was nice outside today and we'd all ditched the inside on favour of that. The boys were several feet away in nothing but swimming trunks, laughing boisterously as they through a football around.

I was trying so hard to use my surroundings as a way to calm myself, though my insides felt like an icy storm had ripped through them. We'd been here three days now and everyday I battled the demons that liked to remind me mincingly that Johnny was right there, literally meters away and he felt absolutely nothing for me. It was tormenting and I didn't know how I'd kept myself so calm. Maybe it was the fact that I knew my inner turmoil and drama would eventually break my friends up, and I didn't want that. But it was so unfair that he got to be in the same cabin as me, his ex-girlfriend, and be completely fine while I slowly descended into pure insanity and sadness. Actually it made anger rip through me. I wanted to punch him in the gut. Hurt him as much as he'd hurt me. And most of all, after our awkward encounter at the dock yesterday, the questions that I'd been trying to lay to rest only became stronger. They buzzed around my head like mosquitoes and I couldn't silence them. I had an eerie suspicion that Johnny himself could only silence them. And after yesterday's show of faux care as a way cover up his actions, he'd be lucky if I even spoke to him ten years from now.

"Yo, Earth to Ava!" Laura chimed and I snapped my head to the left to look at her.

"Y-yeah?" I was frazzled, so lost in my own thoughts that I missed completely on their conversation.

"I was asking how you were holding up, ya know, with the Johnny situation?" she asked and I gave a nondescript shrug, trying to look like I wasn't tearing away at myself inside.

"I don't know, it's fine I guess, I haven't decapitated him yet so that's a plus," I added dryly.

Emily laughed, "Sam told us that the two of you were talking on the dock yesterday. What was that all about?"

Upon hearing that Laura propped herself onto her forearms, raising her eyebrows at me. I gulped against the lump in my throat, looking between both their prying eyes and trying to look composed. It had been months since we'd broken up, I really needed to get a grip.

Running a hand through my hair, I breathed in. "It was nothing really, he was just asking me how I was."

"Oh... well that's nice of him," Emily said hesitantly, exchanging a look with Laura like they both knew how hard I was faking.

"Yeah it's the least he can do after he broke up with you for absolutely no reason," Laura slated, glancing at me immediately afterwards, unsure of how I was going to take it but I didn't look at her I only frowned in the direction of the lake.

"Did you asking him though, why he did it?" Emily asked with caution and my stomach twisted painfully. I wanted to so badly, I needed an answer to fill in that blank space in my mind but I just couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to face it. Because not knowing was the only link I had left to Johnny. The only viable way I could still think about him without it being wrong. Once I knew why he'd left me, I would have nothing but hollow pain and no reason to wonder anymore.

"It doesn't matter, okay," I appeased sternly, steading my voice in an unknown way. "Johnny and me are over. It doesn't matter why. All you need to know is that it is over."