I Ate the Apple

Chapter 1

"Fucking A, Kathryn, you gotta stop doing that!" I snap at my best friend, throwing a pillow at her face as she drinks milk from the jug again.

"Oh, shut your ass up." She says, putting the cap on and shoving the milk back my fridge. "You're twenty three years old. Your husband is gonna do that too, one day!" she says.

The smile vanishes off me face. I shrug.

"Eh." I say.

She sighs.

We've been best friends since freshmen year of college.

The day I walk into the dorm, she was there, crying.

She broke up with her boyfriend for college.

I cried with her, and since then, we've been inseparable.

She lost contact with her man, too.

She found him though. I was with her when it happened. She ran into him, literally, in Times Square, started to apologize and stepped back to look at him, and then bursted into tears.

He was here on vacation. He was here for two days and they spent every second together.

He proposed in the airport before he got on his flight back to Malibu.

I moved back to Alta when I was twenty one. I was there for two weeks and everywhere I went reminded me of Channing, but his parents house was on the market, my parents and Matt moved out of there.

There was no sign on us.

I cut myself, and that's when I drew the line because I knew I'd end up in rehab, so I left, and ever since, I've been in New York City.

I haven't grown an inch, but I look older and more mature, my face is more feminine and I work out all the time, so my ass is...

Well, it's on fleek.

It's mid-July, so I'm extremely tan.

That time on the street was the only time I met him, and I wasn't even introduced, she just told me she'd call me later, and she disappeared with him.

They're married now, and I'm best friend with both of them, but I don't hang out with them much because their relationship kills me.

She's at my house, begging me to go out with her and James, her husband.

I've searched every single social media site.

I hired somebody to find him, or his family.

I looked everywhere.

I used to have his number memorized, but two years into college, Mom and Dad told me way too late that they stopped paying the cell phone bill on accident.

My phone got shut off and I somehow lost everything.

Matt called me when they turned my phone back on, with a new company and new phone number, and told me Mom and Dad accidently didn't pay the bill so I'd lose Channing's number.

So I'd move on.

I got into a fight with them over the phone and refused to speak to my family for three years.

That was six months ago. I told them when I moved back in, that I'm in love with Channing.

It isn't puppy love.

It never was.

Mom cried with me, and she tried to help me find him, but it's no use.

I still search his name on Facebook every night, and I never go to sleep without looking in my yearbook at the photo of us. We got voted the couple most likely to get married.

"Cam," Kathryn sighs. "You gotta stop putting yourself through this, honey." Kathryn sits down across from me.

"I can't." I whisper, smiling with tears in my eyes.

Only, it's not happy tears.

"Would you have let go of James?" I whisper. "If you never found him?"

She looks down. "No." she smiles, tears in her eyes now. "I couldn't."

"Exactly."

A year into college, I deleted all my social media because I was literally going crazy viewing his stuff.

I searched his whole family, but it's no use.

One of my tears drips onto the table.

"God, I'm going crazy, K." I whisper. "I'm...I'm not living anymore. I'm surviving. I'm getting by. Sure, my restaurant is booming and all over the country, but I can't find happiness."

"You don't even want to expand your options?"

"No. God no."

She sighs.

"Well, James and I are going on a mini vacation. Wanna come?"

"Nah, I-"

"Pack your shit." She says. "I'm not giving you a choice. I need to see a fragment of something in your eyes, because you've not looked genuinely happy since the day I met you."

I don't even ask where we're going, I just hand her my credit card.

Maybe I should try to let loose.

Sighing, I go pack all my clothes.

She looks excited that I'm actually going, and she drags me down to the car.

I mentally prepare myself for what's next, thankful my high school yearbook is in my suitcase.