mint; （ a. knight ）

9. amber;

Fighting with people was exhausting. I wasn't a coward or non-confrontational by any stretch but that didn't make fighting any easier. I'd avoided the inevitable shit storm by running back to Louisiana when things between my ex and I dissolved. He'd kicked me out of our apartment together, told me to pack my things and leave. I threw most of my things into a storage locker in Houston, got in my car and didn't look back for four months.

I could honestly say that the break up with Matt had almost been my undoing. Almost. Between draining the life out of me during the last part of our relationship, to the period of inky, black sadness that draped over my life, there were times I wished the ground would just open up underneath me and swallow me whole.

I didn't dance and I didn't write. Things that made me happy before were all stained with bittersweet emotions and mixed memories. He had torn me from his life so easily and I spent the better part of a month reeling, trying to figure out who I was without him.

After a certain amount of time together, we just started building our lives together instead of separately. We'd moved in together. His name was on my car's title, and my bank account. We'd planned to open up a joint account before we got married, which I had been suspecting he would ask for months before our breakup.

When I had left Texas, I hadn't taken care of getting his name off anything that was mine. It was not the right thing to do and I knew I should've taken care of it at the time, but even seeing his name written somewhere made my chest ache like blood pulsing behind a bruise. I couldn't face anything.

Maybe that did make me a coward.

"I don't know what to do," I confessed to Carys.

"He honestly won't sign the papers?" Carys asked. She stirred her coffee slowly, frowning at it.

"No, he won't." I rubbed my hands against my face, feeling my throat close up as tears began stinging my eyes. "Every time I call, he either hangs up or yells at me that it isn't his problem. I don't know what else to do."

"Have you spoke to the car dealership? And what about the bank?" Carys asked. "There has to be some solution. Not everyone is compliant with their partner after a break-up. There has to be a way out of this mess."

"I haven't asked," I said honestly and sighed. "It isn't even the dealership that I have to deal with. It's the DMV. But both the DMV and the bank request his signature of approval. He's literally never cared until now and I don't fucking understand."

My phone chirped for the third time since we'd arrived at the coffee shop. I noted who it was, again, and sighed. I was really good at avoiding things, apparently.

"Is that Awsten again?" Carys asked.

I nodded a bit miserably. "Now that's three texts I've ignored." I sighed again. "He's coming home in four days and I can't face him. Not with this shit going on. I'm a mess."

"If you explain this to him, he'd understand. You know that, right?" Carys tried to be the voice of reason, as always. "He went through all of this with his ex, did he not?"

"He did, he did." I groaned and tried not to rub my face in annoyance and mess up my makeup. "But this is different. I ran the fuck away from my problems. I left the fuckin' state. He faced everything head on and felt all his feelings. He called a therapist and has been working on his depression and anxiety this whole time. I haven't done shit."

"Everyone works through pain different, Ellie. You know that," Carys said gently.

"Things are different now." I frowned. "When he was getting ready to leave for tour, I knew for a fact we were just friends. That's what he wanted, that's what I wanted. I would've put money on it. But now... I don't know what's going on." I paused a moment and then said quieter, "I like him, Carys. I like him a lot. And he's going to come home and be better and I'm still going to be a mess."