"Bree, he wanted to end the relationship when you didn't. He chose to take a so-called 'break' from you when you didn't want to. He made the choice to end it and you didn't have a choice. He took your choice away then, but you sure as hell have one...
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Chapter Five
Reds
The first day after Leith Street I ate two bowls of cereal for dinner (yes, dinner) so Kibbie knew that whopping four-pinter milk wasn't going to waste. The second day and I poured it into a pancake mix that turned out runny as water. The third day I took a selfie with a milk moustache. The fourth and I just drank it near whole because it was the whitest lie I could swallow and Kibbie must've known it.
Lying about why I went out that night felt bad even when it was supposed to serve a purpose. The intention was to send Darius packing so what did Kibbie need to know? Nothing. He wouldn't be a thing to explain if he wasn't around. It's not like I knew whether he'd gone or not but these past few days not a single notification came through my phone with his name on it, so maybe he had?
And maybe that meant I could pull myself together instead of pouring over old keepsakes of us I'd boxed in this wardrobe. Kibbie had the right idea though. She was in her room getting an outfit together for tonight's fifth anniversary at Reds and I should've been doing the same. But before I knew it she was yelling her surprise from the kitchen that I'd washed dishes because besides swallowing pints of guilt, I'd found lame ways to make what was going on with me more forgivable by doing more around the flat. If anyone were to ask me if it worked I'd tell them this; the truth is worth a better try if you're braver than me. If you can face it.
I couldn't.
"Problem?" I said from my room, nowhere near ready, and tucking the keepsakes fast in a plywood box when her footsteps echoed up the hall. I'd missed one; an old letter I'd written to Darius all those months ago, but as I reached for it I couldn't box it in time.
The second a dolled-up Kibbie breezed through my bedroom door I scrunched the letter in my hand and balled it out of sight, kicked the box under my bed and perched over the duvet with an elbow lean. Totally natural.
"No, no problem," she said. "Just...you never clean."
Uncomfortable pose, this. "Actually, that's a bit of an exaggeration, Kibb. I do clean." I got up, sliding my hand out of sight. "Sometimes."
I was sure she'd cottoned on to me over-compensating for these last few days but before she could push it I went to my drawer instead and pulled a box of jewellery out. "Here, try these earrings. I think you'd look killer in them."
"Keep them." She sighed. "I see you, y'know. Trying to make up for something that's not a big deal. Doing things you don't usually do 'cause you feel bad. I mean, okay so you shouted a bit?" She shrugged.
"Yeah, but—"
"It's me, you know." She stood in front of my full length mirror, her outfit for tonight was full on casual glam.
