It's Never Just Goodbye // Ed Sheeran

Chewing Gum

Nina

The air outside was humid and I could feel my freshly straightened hair grow frizzier the moment I stepped outside. The sun had rose an hour before, but I found myself to be up and ready before the rest of my friends.

I passed by empty wine bottles and cigarettes in ashtrays on my way outside. My old friends from home sprawled out on my flats floor and couches, with their mouths open, and snores coming lightly from their noses.

Last night had been my twentieth birthday. A night full of laughter, none of us sober enough to make decisions. All of my friends throwing shots in front of me and watching me down them. All of them screaming for me to let loose and find my teenage self again.

But now that night was over and my head pounded as I sat on my balcony. The sun heated up the summer air quickly, and not even the morning started out cool. The horizon was a bright orange that just seemed overly dramatic and not particularly stunning.

With a cigarette in between my thin, pale fingers, I penned through a magazine. I was the only one awake at that moment, and despite our big plans for touring a festival that day, I had no intention in waking any of them up.

Passing by tricks to lose weight and recipes that are guaranteed vegan, I stop on the top charted albums of the month. And there lies the man that broke my heart. Honestly, I wasn't surprised they deemed Multiply as one of the greatest albums lyrically written of 2014. While it pissed me off a bit that I got a very small recognition for Peroxide, I understood where they got the idea for picking him. After all, every record on his album was oddly spectacular.

He has years of experience ahead of me, I tell myself constantly. I shouldn't get so upset that he was doing better than me. I guess when you become exes with someone, it instantly puts you in competition with each other.

I doubt he felt that we were competing, and we weren't exactly. But there was a part of me that felt the need to do better than him somehow. I needed to prove that I could be somebody without him. I wanted him to look at my accomplishments and think I've done incredibly well without him – even better.

"You have done better without him, Nina." I say to myself.

Despite my hatred for him, I did listen to the entire album. It was a night full of red wine and crying, but I cannot lie and say I haven't sat down and put it on repeat. It would also be untrue to say I hated it. In fact, I loved almost everything about the album.

I even loved the song titled with my name. With so much hatred built up in my heart towards him, the song allowed for some of that loathing to diminish. Even when he showed up at my place to show me the song, every part of me was disgusted, and I couldn't help but feeling nothing but anger towards the man who broke my naïve heart.

Up until the moment I heard the song he's written for me, I held onto this impossible self-doubt, fear of romance, and nothing but hatred for him. But the rain is gone, and I finally feel like I've gotten an appropriate apology from him.

My phone buzzed against the glass of the grainy table. I reached for it, and without thinking answered it to the unknown number. I ask, "Hello, who is this?"

"Hello, Nina. This is the Daily Record. Are you aware of who we are?" The woman nicely asks on the telephone.

"Um, yes. Hello." I nervously laugh.

"I was calling in regards to your recent jump in popularity. I would like to see if we can schedule and interview with you."

Anxiously, I picked at the loose string from my shorts. I laughed again, but it was more to boast about what she had just declared. I respond, "I'm sorry, I would love to. I'm just caught off guard on how you got my number."