The Edge of Reality

Chapter 17: The End?

All of the concerns and doubts I had been having about my relationship with Mareo were pushed out of my head in the weeks to come. I wasn't sure what it was about that evening with him, but I had renewed hope in our future together. He had helped shape who I was becoming as a person, and I knew that regardless of our struggles I loved him more than anything and wasn't willing to throw that away. In fact, I gradually became more appalled with myself for almost letting him slip through my fingers. I spent the next couple weeks trying to make up for lost time and feelings, both with him and within myself. I spent every minute I could with him, which strangely enough was not that difficult anymore. I still worked full hours, but I spent a lot less time with our group after the concert. It's not like I didn't see them or talk to them anymore, but we spent a lot less time together as a whole- or perhaps I was the only one missing. As far as things were with Camm, I wasn't sure what to think anymore. It was clear I had some sort of attraction to him- in hindsight he was one of the underlying reasons I wanted to break up at all. However, I kept those thoughts out of my mind as much as possible. I hadn't accepted him after the kiss, but I hadn't blown him off either. He was still around a lot, but the air between us was charged with something that could only be a tie between flirtatiousness and awkward tension. Regardless, Mareo was at the forefront of my thoughts from then on, and I tried to repair what had been damaged. Surprisingly, even after our talk that one evening, he had gone back to pretending everything was normal, as though nothing had been wrong in the first place. The only difference was that now he did that at my apartment in my room much of the time. Even days when I was at work, he would text me telling me he'd arrived at my place and was hanging out until I got there. Days like that I would spend staring at the clock, counting the minutes until I could go home to him. It was one of these days that I found a surprise in my room. I opened the door and Mareo and Des were sitting side by side on my bed, looking at a laptop.

"Hey Tesha!" Des said excitedly.

"Welcome home," Mareo said in a relaxed tone, a jovial gleam in his eyes.

"Hi..." I said hesitantly, setting my bag down on a chair. "What are you guys doing?"

"Just some video games," Mareo said lightly. He reached out to me, "C'mere." I sat down on the bed next to him and he put his arm around me. On his screen were The Sims and I laughed.

"Really?" I groaned judgmentally.

"Hey," Des started defensively. "Have you ever played it? It's pretty fun." Well, I hadn't. I barely knew that they were a weird virtual reality game, and I wasn't interested on refining my knowledge. I zoned out to the odd garbled speaking coming from the game as I rested my head on Mareo's shoulder. It became uncomfortable before long because of how much he kept moving. He and Des were having really passionate discussions about their sims and babies and housing structures but I didn't really pay attention. Maybe I was pissed that she was in here with him when I wanted time alone, maybe I was just disappointed that the two of them seemed more connected at times than I was with either of them. Regardless, I sat silently with them until the laptop died and Des decided she wanted to go to bed (or find Eloy, I could never tell.) After she left, closing the door behind her, Mareo flopped over on his side and looked up at me.

"So how's it going? You're pretty quiet," he said. I wasn't really sure what to tell him, so I became lamely generic.

"Oh, I'm just kind of tired I guess," I said, trying to subtly rearrange my facial expressions to make me look happier without smiling.

"Really? Are you sure?" He seemed more inquisitive than concerned, so I decided to keep rolling with my first answer.

"Yeah, it was SO busy. I didn't really have the chance to sit down all day." I would have made up an interesting story about a bitchy customer, but I was terrible enough at lying as it was, so I kept it simple.