The Cycle of Friends to Strangers

Chapter 19 - It Goes From Bad to Worse

"Happy new year!" called Melanie as she walked into Ian and Anthony house.

"Happy new year"  said Ian, he was sitting on the sofa, his head in his hands.

"Ian! What's wrong" Melanie rushed over to him and sat down next to him and began rubbing hs back.

"I'm fine"

"I know something's wrong, remember when you came round my house yesterday? I heard you crying, so please tell me what's wrong" Melanies voice croaked a bit as if she was about to cry, but she didn't, even though it killed her to see Ian upset.

"Nothing, Melanie please, I'm fine!" Ian looked up at Melanie and had tears running down his face.

Melanie looked Ian in the eyes and just held him, "I know you're strong," she whispered, "wanna know why?"

Ian nodded, he let his head rest against her shoulder as Melanie held him.

"You have tears streaming down your face and you're still trying to insist you're okay even though I know something is wrong - Ian even your viewers know something is wrong," Melanie could feel Ian sobbing against her, "and Ian, you have been strong for such a long time, but sometimes it's okay to break, it doesn't mean you're weak, it just means you've been strong for too long, you've been trying to hold everything up for such a long time that you have to drop everything once in a while so you don't hurt yourself... Now, do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

Ian pulled back, his eyes were red and puffy, but before he wiped his tears, he moved Melanies hair out of her face and back in place.

"Anthony's not here," he said, "he's not spending new years here..." Ian stopped talking because he knew he'd just start crying again.

"Why? I mean he's your best friend... why wouldn't he be here?"

"Guess. It's the one person who's ruining my life, and I have to pretend to like them for Anthony" Ian put his head in his hands again.

Melanie slowly rubbed his back again, "That sly girl Kalel, am I right?"

"Got it in one," Ian chuckled a bit.

"She uploaded a new video to her channel yesterday, she confessed her lies" said Melanie,

"Really? What did she say?"

"That her name isn't Kalel - she just called herself that because she loves superman and felt her real name didn't suit her... her name's actually Kristen"

"What are we supposed to call her then?" asked Ian.

"She said she prefers Kalel."

"I didn't see that video, but what I do know is that she's been using Anthonys money to buy herself things that she probably doesn't need"

Ians phone began vibrating, "The spam alarm" he said as he got out his phone.

"'Did you know about this?' And then there's a link" Ian looked confused.

"Who's it from?" asked Melanie.

"One of the viewers kept sending this to me over and over again on twitter" he clicked on the link and moved the phone so him and Melanie could both see it.

Ian dropped his phone before Melanie could read it. Ian stood up and began pacing back and forth, "Why would she do that? They haven't even been together that long"

Melanie picked up the phone, the link showed a screenshotted picture of one of Kalels blogs.

Melanie started to read it out, "'Discussing with my boyfriend about moving in our own apartment together, it's more and more real by the minute' What? Why is she doing this?"

"I don't know! She didn't even call him Anthony, his name is Anthony, not 'My Boyfriend'"

Ians phone began to ring.

"Who is it?" he asked Melanie, she had the phone in  her hand.

"Anthony," she said giving the phone to Ian.

"Hello?" Ian said in a cheerier tone as he answered the call.

"Hey, you okay?" asked Anthony.

"Yup, what about you?"

"More than okay! I'm in love with being in love"

"What happenned?"

"I just bought an apartment with Kalel and-"

Ian couldn't hear anything after that point, he didn't want to. All he could think about was losing Anthony, losing all the memories they shared all because of Kalel.

***************************

Anthony couldn't bare telling Ian about him moving, "The only problem..." Anthony took a pause so he could compose himself, "It's going to be harder to record our videos, I'm going to have to get a plane back and forth"

"Oh..." replied Ian.

"ANTHONY! WE NEED TO PACK, TELL HIM YOU'RE GOING ROUND TO GET YOUR STUFF!" Kalel was shouting from another room,.

"Is it okay i-"

"Yes" said Ian.

"I didn't ask you a question"

"I heard Kalel from the other room"

"Oh okay, well, happy new year... buddy" buddy...

"You too... buddy"

With that, Anthony hung up.

'Why did Kalel have to make me move?' Anthony was thinking to himself.

***************

'Why does Kalel always have to ruin everything?' Ian wondered.