Denying Dylan | ✔️

(6) "I love you too."

The twenty seventh of December is the earliest that I'll venture out of the apartment after Christmas. To be honest, it's still too soon. There are sales on. Big sales. Seventy percent off sales and buy one get one free sales. Manhattan turns into an absolute mad house. More so than it is. But I'd agreed to meet Alouise at Oslo's coffee roasters. It's on 75th which is about a ten minute walk from 84th where I am.

I don't mind walking. Even in below freezing temperatures. It opens up the mind. It allows thought and in some ways it unloads some of the tension that can gather. Although, most of the time, ear pods are required to drown out some of the white noise that comes with such a busy city.

After I've pulled on a pair of thermals, jeans, thick woolen socks, a pair of genuine leather boots and a hooded coat, I check my cellphone and smile at the text message from Dylan. He sent it this morning before the sun had even come up.

Hey. Come by work at lunch time. We should talk about New Years. x

It goes without saying that he's going to cook up something delicious for me. Whenever Dylan tells me to come into work, he has a hot plate of food waiting for me in the kitchen. So there's the excitement over that. However, the second half of his text leaves me unnerved. We've had a New Year's tradition for as long as I can remember. His mom and dad take us to Atlanta. Every year. Sure, there's a lot of excitement that happens right here in the big apple, but Atlanta has always been special to us.

We go and enjoy the live bands, the food stalls, the entertainment and we watch the fireworks light up Stone Mountain. Dylan and his family had been spending New Year's eve in a different place for as long as they could remember. And the year that Dylan and I met happened to be the year that they would spend in Atlanta. After that, we begged to go back every year. There was a magic about it that never faded for us. For that night, just that one night, we were whoever we wanted to be.

But then Charlie happened. She couldn't get time off work last year, so she couldn't come. But this year she would be around for New Year's Eve and so this year, I didn't feel as enthusiastic about holding up traditions. In fact, I'd been making other plans for a while now. I just hadn't told Dylan. But I had to. It was fast approaching and I couldn't put it off forever.

As I wander past the kitchen to leave the apartment, the smart fridge must sensor me because it lights up, beeps and asks what I'll be having for breakfast this morning. I almost pass out from fright. I hate that stupid fridge. Sure, it asks what I'm having for breakfast. But it doesn't cook. It just makes one sided conversation that's pointless answering because it's not smart enough to keep it up.

Heart still thudding, I flip it off and storm out of the apartment. If I wasn't so in love with my bedroom, I would have moved out. Perhaps that wasn't quite true. I didn't have a job and while I had a trust fund, that would run out if I wasn't careful. Not working was tragic. I needed to do something. Dylan offered me a job at his restaurant, as a waitress. But I hadn't become quite that desperate. Not that there was anything wrong with being a waitress but my father was going to have a meltdown at whatever I chose to do. It might be a touch less aggressive if it's not a minimum wage job.

When I arrive at Oslo's, I pause outside and admire the building for a moment. It's black iron with wooden bench seats and green climbing vines curling up the steel bars on the windows. Next door, the building is made of burnt orange brick and the same black iron doors. It'd make a beautiful photo. Rustic. It reminds me that I should have brought the new camera with me. I wasn't used to keeping one on me. I'd have to get back into the habit. I'd also have to keep it hidden from dad so that it doesn't end up as a pile of plastic pieces again.

"Alright, what's wrong?" Alouise glares before my butt has even hit the wooden seat in the corner of the cafe.

She ordered for me. There's a steaming hot mocha with a cute chocolate swirl waiting to be downed. It'll have three sugars in it too. I can't have my coffee unless it's sickeningly sweet.