Undone [Completed]

Undone: [Nine] [Part Two]

 I've had exams, so it took me a while to get here. Sorry about that.

I fit in better than I thought I would – the looks were there, but I could deal. There weren’t any questions, strangely, maybe because I hadn’t really made friends in my time there earlier, but a nagging feeling inside told me my friends had something to do with it.

I didn’t mind though.

I’d come to accept that things weren’t the same, and probably wouldn’t be, but it was alright.

I was alright.

*

“So, what’s up?” I asked, my awkward attempt to break the silence making things even more uncomfortable.

“I doubt you care about the latest with the squad,” she replied, making an effort to make the conversation more smooth, obviously, but it didn’t help much.

It was comforting to know that she cared enough to try, at least, but nothing-doing. I shrugged to deliver an ‘I guess’, but it was more out of helplessness than anything. Things hadn’t worked out as I’d hoped they would, but that’s not to say I blamed her. Ever since I’d rejected – had to reject – Maya, a wall had formed between us at some point. We’d agreed to be friends, sure, but it was like the ‘I’m fine’ that upset people normally spill out. Things had changed, and they’d just been words.

“How have you been otherwise?” Her question came minutes after we stood by the lockers, each waiting for our separate group of friends, staring into nothingness.

My response wasn’t false. “Good, I’d say,” I couldn’t stop the smile that came onto my face automatically.

“What happened?”

That was the other weird thing. We’d become estranged, but we hadn’t lost touch with each other. In the sense that we could tell what the other was thinking, or feeling. In this case, she hadn’t missed the smile in my voice (she hadn’t been looking at my face).

“What? Nothing happened. Things are just going really well.”

She nudged me, her eyes starting to shine, the past starting to return. “Oh, really? Come on,  you can tell me! Is there someone?”

“Maya!” I didn’t know why I blushed. Her question did make sense, only I wasn’t dating anyone, or anything.

“What? I’m just asking!” she laughed, amused by my discomfort.

“No, there isn’t anyone. Things are just good because of my friends.”

“Thank you,” she stuck her tongue out at me.

“I mean mainly the guys, you know?”

Now. That, I had said in a teasing tone. I’d been joking, but my words had disturbed the pond that had just begun to settle. Maya’s face fell. I realized what she’d interpreted my words as before she could say anything, and reached out to hold her hand.

“Hey, you know I’m kidding right?”

It was too late. She squeezed my hand in response and nodded weakly, then quickly threw in a ‘I got to go now, I’ll see you.’

I opened my mouth to protest. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

But the words I heard her mumble before she walked away, and tears in her eyes made my insides feel like they’d been twisted.

“That’s what they all say.”

*

“Hey man, what’s up?” I’d wandered about for a few more minutes before my path crossed Ryan’s. I’d been absorbed with thinking about what had happened earlier with Maya, cursing myself for having been so stupid, so much that I hadn’t seen Ryan.