Latch {Short Story}

Chapter Four

~ September 24th, 1996 ~

It's been two weeks and three days since I last spoke to Finn. Unfortunately,- we didn't end things on the best note.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You lead me on, Arrietty." Finn speaks harshly through his silent cries.

"Did you stalk me?!" I ask more violently than intended.

He obnoxiously laughs at my accusation. "I went home to check on my Brother, and I saw you two on my walk back." He informs me, still with an intense sorrow in his eyes. He takes in a sharp breath, "I thought we had something."

My sight shafts to the floor. "I thought so too." I hesitate; but carry on further with my reply before I send him into deeper rejection. "But since meeting Bertie, i've realised that what we have is on a friendship level."  I sigh in relief. "You're a beautiful human, Finn. And I admit that I liked you." The relief subsides and I go back to guilt. "Now I see that I was in awe of you, rather than wanting to be with you. When I compare you to Bertie; it's a different feeling. You give me contentness, he gives me butterflies."

I look back up to him in hope that his reaction isn't too bad; but it's worse than bad, it's draining. He starts frantically shaking his head in disagreement.

"I don't believe you." He stubbornly whimpers. "We had a connection!" His pitch goes from 15% to 60%.

"As friends. Just because we connected doesn't mean we have to be romantically involved! We're friends, Finn."

His eyes go from rejected to done.

"Fuck this." He yells at 80%; followed by bashing into me as he walks past and slamming the door behind him in clear fury.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And he hasn't spoke to me since.

I've gone from having 5 new friends to 1. Romy. And even with her, I feel like she's being nice to me just so she can stay at my house for longer. She's been living with me for a month. A whole freaking month.

After one hour of an intense Psychology, i've decided that bailing on education for the day is probably the best idea. The good thing about this college is that I can tell the office worker i'm having a bad day and she lets me leave. 

When I'm having a 'bad day,' I always end up at Bertie's. We cuddle, listen to tapes, kiss, laugh, smoke, ocassionally debate, then go back to kissing. And somehow when I'm with him, my bad day turns to good. He's become a haven for me.

As I spend most of my free time with their son,- the Chaplin family have become acustom to me walking through All Things Nice and upstairs to their house. Bertie is one of the few people in this town with a somewhat normal home life. It's surprising seeing as he turned out a bit... Odd.

My normal routine of entering Bertie's room would be; walk in, jump on him and shower him in hugs, then make out. But today is different. Upon walking into his room, I come to face a flaw that Bertie has kept undercover.

Heroin.

How does one react when they see their partner injecting a drug substance into their vein?

"Bertie..." I mutter.

His posture instantly straightens at the sound of my voice. When done shooting up his arm, he gives himself a moment to conjure up something to say. Anything.