The Boy That Broke America

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0.4

                  LANE EMERSTAN WAS not one to freak out. In fact, Lane prided herself in her ability to not freak out; she had her poker face down to a tee. However, Lane did not like surprises. Not the actually thing-that-was-the-surprise part, but the not-knowing-about-it-at-all part, so this surprise was particularly unpleasant, as she had never expected it in a million years.

Lane was standing shock still in the hallway for god-knows how long before her mother called her into the kitchen to help with dinner. Lane took a number of deep breaths and composed herself; setting her shoulders and wiping the surprise off her face as one would with their makeup. The invitation was shoved back into its envelope by her long, slightly shaky fingers, and that was then slid into the back pocket of her jeans.

She helped her mother and Ivor with the dishes filled with vegetables and casserole, but while her body was present, her mind was not. In reality, Lane had floated far, far away; over to California, past her father making another successful business deal and hand-feeding his new wife in celebration, through the city of San Francisco and into the depths of Los Angeles, where Rhys Conner was planning his wedding with a girl Lane had never met before in her life.

Lane silently worked through setting the table with cutlery and crockery, taking her seat across from Ivor at the table. Her mother chatted away, talking to Ivor about his 'plans' and asking about his parents. Lane contributed the occasional murmurs of agreement and disagreement where appropriate, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

The lobes of her brain felt like they were moving around, twisting and turning over each other, trying to piece together whatever she needed to make sense of the situation. Lane's fingers were twisting into impossible knots in her lap beneath the table, and she tried to focus on them to stop her from floating too far away.

The rest of the evening passed rather quickly, through Lane's dazed state. After the dishes were cleared and washed up, she retreated back to her room, completed the usual mundane night-time activities, and finally slid into her bed.

Here Lane truly let herself think about that letter (which sat at the bottom of her sock drawer, but may as well have been right next to her, the amount she was thinking about it) and what it meant. The edges of Lane's thoughts seemed to slip and slide out of her grasp the more she tried to grasp onto them, so she took a deep breath and started from the very beginning.

Rhys Conner had been Lane's best friend since she was a tiny baby, with no hair and socks smaller than her father's thumb. She had once known every single thing about him, from his exact favourite colour (cerulean blue) to his coffee order (a regular Americano, straight, no fuss), and he had known the same about her.

She was completely in love with him, in the most platonic sense possible. Then, one night, he boarded a plane to California, and broke her heart.

Lane missed him a whole goddamn much, and 

She tried to keep in touch with him, of course she did, but distance is a black hole for relationships, and in the end it was just too hard. 

Eventually their friendship dwindled to nothing, apart from the occasional 'Happy Birthday', 'Congratulations' and 'How are you?' texts, which largely went unseen or ignored on either end. Conversations rarely ensued, and when they did, they were brief, forced, and significantly awkward.

Lane wanted to hate him, but it was like there was some kind of unspoken alliance between the two; they had known each other for so long that, in some way, they would always be friends, no matter how far apart they were - in geography and emotional attachment alike.