My bloodsucking best friend

Chapter Fourteen

As I walk up the staircase to the apartment, it's hard to breathe, and with the door in front of me, I feel so nervous that I can barely get the keys into the lock. 
The volume of the music playing inside is so high that I wonder why no neighbor has complained yet, and while my jittery feet carry me down the hallway to where the loud sound comes from, I recognize the song.

"Blue Carolina?" I half ask in the doorframe and no human being would be able to understand my voice due to the volume, but of course he does. Andy's eyes shoot up from the notebook lying on his lap, and he immediately drops the pen he was holding and practically jumps from the couch, and a part of me envies how elegant he looks doing it because anyone else would probably fall to their feet.

His eyes lock with mine, so wide like a deer caught in headlights, the remote he is holding absently points to the sound system in the corner to turn it down so I can understand him too.
"I didn't expect you to be back so soon," he admits, his voice hoarse, and all I can do for the moment is nod. "Do you, um, want to sit down?" 

"Sure," I hear myself say and watch him flop onto the couch again, shifting so I can be next to him, but I pick the other couch on the other side of the living room table and a shadow of disappointment seems to flash in his tired eyes for a second.
Both of us are speaking lowly and with a shyness and uncertainty that creates an uncomfortable atmosphere like I'm talking to a stranger instead of who I believed was my best friend.
Obscure stillness fills the room as we just stare at each other before I drop my gaze to my dirty shoes I forgot to take off when I came in, and it's so noiseless that even I could hear a pin drop. I can't recall us ever being like this.
We open our mouths at the same time while I raise my head, but when we see the other's attempt to speak, we shut them again awkwardly.

"You go first," I say barely above a whisper and look away again because I can't face his beautiful features right now.
"I... I can't even begin to tell you how terribly sorry I am, Lil," he quietly says and I can't tell what emotions are lacing his words, but I can certainly hear regret. 
When I don't respond because I just can't, he continues. 
"The last twenty-four hours... I don't know what was going on. I really don't. It was just such... a huge mess, you know?" I'm still incapable of reacting and fixate my view on the window that shows the horribly boring so-called skyline of our ordinary New Jersey small town. The sky is as gray and lifeless as I feel.

"That doesn't excuse anything though, I know," he notes and I can hear how stressed he is while talking, but I won't help him out. Blue Carolina starts again because he must have put it in an infinite loop, and something inside of me aches when I hear the lyrics, but I press my lips together.
"I don't know what happened to us... to me," he concedes, pain in his words. "It was just too much."

"What was too much?" I finally ask and turn my face towards his to get lost in his deep eyes again. 
"I don't know," he whispers. "I got so angry. I couldn't control myself. But I swear it will never happen again."
"You're lying," I claim and my voice breaks, but I don't break our eye contact across the table.
He fiercely shakes his head, but a part of me can't believe him this time. "You said that last time," I whisper and this time, he has to look away. "It's been years since then," Andy argues quietly, "and you forgave me."

"I did," I acknowledge, "but it happened again today."
"You know I didn't mean it." 
We both stare at the ground.

"I know."

Dan Andriano's voice fills the silence, but I wish he stopped singing because the song hurts too much.
"Why are you listening to that?" I finally want to know. 
"I guess I was just feeling... nostalgic," he admits and chuckles, and I feel the corners of my mouth twitching. "Without that song, do you think we would have ever..."
"Become friends?" he finishes my sentence and looks up, causing the memories to flood back inside my thoughts after I've tried to shut them out so hard for so long.