Sometimes Pain's the Only Way that We Can Learn || ✖️Solby✖️

Chapter 2

((A/N: this chapter is all in Colby's POV))

It had been three days since that party. Three days since I saw the first glimpse of the guy who was my new neighbor. For three days I'd been contemplating talking to him, but I always decided against it.

I'd mess it up. I always mess everything up.

It was getting later, the pain was getting stronger. I needed something more than alcohol, I needed to face it. I needed to clear my mind.

I peeled myself off the couch and got in the shower, staying there for a while letting the warm water run over me. It reminded me of those nice warm feelings I would get even though my life was falling apart.

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my waist when I heard a loud knock on the door. "Uh, I'll be right there!" I shouted, rushing to the closet to put on some clothes.

Once I found something and put it on, I went over to the door and opened it, to reveal the guy who had just moved in, and he looked slightly mad. I figured he was going to tell me to shut up and go to sleep at night instead of having parties.

"Uh, can I help you?" I asked, not meaning to, but sounding like a bitch. "Well, I wanted to ask you nicely before I go over and file a noise complaint on you, but could you please stop throwing wild parties every other night? I really need sleep," he said.

I sighed. This was the third time this month that I've gotten someone at my door asking me to stop, most have been less kind, and the other two were more so yelling at me something along the lines of "SHUT THE FUCK UP"

"And another thing, it's really not healthy to be drinking so much," he added. Like he knows what's good for me.

"Uh sorry, I'll try to tone things down, but I don't think I'll be able to stop them completely, my friends would riot," I said. "Right," he replied, groaning slightly. "Maybe try to convince them to think about the fact that an exhausted person is right next to them," he sighed. "I'll try, sorry about it," I said.

After he left, I closed the door and finished getting ready. When I was done, I left and got in my car to start the thirty minute drive I had to where I was going.

I was going to the beach, which sounds like a weirdly busy place for me to go when I want to clear my head, but all the teenagers partying there are too scared to bother a guy who came by himself late at night dressed in black to bother me. Aside from that, everyone else has basically left, well the people that would bother me anyways.

By that, I mean families. I stay away from crowded places during the day solely because I've had too many small children point at me and say "mommy that guy looks dead!" And then their mothers turn them away from me and tell them I'm a devil worshiper. Clearly she hasn't been on the internet, because if that were the case then everyone's a devil worshiper.

Anyways, nobody would bother me, and even the loud parties are weirdly calming. The cracking of wood in their fires, the happy yells, maybe it's just because it reminded me of myself just a few years ago, when I was just a mere child and didn't know what life had in store for me.

That combined with the waves crashing on the shore created an oddly calming effect, and gave me space to reflect on everything that had happened. When I thought about it, I felt weirdly happy, even though for most, nobody likes to think about painful experiences. Maybe I just like hurting myself.

I stretched out the towel I'd brought to avoid getting sand all over me and brought my knees up to my chest, resting my head on them. 

I let my mind wander, and it ran right to the current thing causing me pain, that being the fact that I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. That sounds like the most common thing as a millennial, but that really was stressing me out, and unlike most of them, I didn't have my parents to rely on. They swore they'd stop helping me out after I turned 20, so I had to work hard and save money to support myself, and that's probably where my dread came from.

I always worried about making enough to survive that I couldn't focus on anything else, but through the years I've raked up enough money and started a successful career through the internet, but I was starting to question how reliable that would be in the future, so I guess you could say I'm slightly lost right now.

Next, I just got out of a long relationship and it was messy, put lightly. She didn't like that I didn't spend every second of every day with her when I could barely keep myself together. I suffered in silence for a while just to let some dumb girl mess with my emotions.

At that point, I wasn't even capable of loving someone, so I told her how I felt, but she insisted I was seeing someone else. Then after some thought, I came to realize I was bisexual, and tried telling her about that, but she insisted I was seeing another guy behind her back. I did my best to convince her I wasn't, but got virtually nowhere, and it was just a lot of back and forth yelling until she finally accepted it and left crying and screaming about how I'd ruined her life.

At the time I didn't care, but now I feel bad about it, and blame myself for breaking her heart, even though I could barely function properly enough for myself and had to let her go before she ended up hurting even more, but it still made me feel like a monster.

By now my life's fallen apart and I don't care enough to try to put it back together. All it's about for me right now is drinking, filming, spending hours nonstop editing, drinking more, uploading, and throwing parties to make everyone happy.

Had I known everything would be so repetitive and boring I would've tried to make a normal life. Maybe then things would be different, but I guess I'd just have to deal with it.

I shut my mind off for a moment and listened to the waves crashing on the shore. That was always a calming thing for me.

After sitting there for a while and letting everything out, I got back in the car and drove back to my apartment.

To my surprise, the neighbor was also just getting back too, a bag of Mc. Donald's in hand.

"Seems like we'll be seeing each other a lot," I said as I stuck the key in my door. "Uh yeah, I mean we live next to each other so probably," he shrugged. "Well then, neighbor, I'm Colby, and you are?" I asked "I uh- my name's Sam," he said. "Nice to meet you Sam, late night food run I assume," I said "well yeah, I just got kind of hungry," He shrugged.

We talked a bit in the hallway, but no matter how much I tried talking to him, he always seemed nervous, or scared of me. Maybe it was weird seeing someone coming in at midnight dressed in all black with a hood over their head, hiding their eyes. Maybe my tone was creepy, I have a habit of doing that.

"So, you disappeared for a while, where'd you head off to?" He asked. "Somewhere, just to clear my mind," I shrugged. "What would someone like you have to worry about?" He asked. "What's that supposed to mean?" I scoffed. "It just seems like you have everything. I mean clearly, you're popular, and if you're living in a luxury apartment in LA, you've got money," he said.

What does this guy think life is about? "Well, that's completely wrong, don't assume I'm happy just because I have that," I snapped, causing him to flinch. "Sorry," he muttered.

We left the conversation at that and both went back to our respective places.

Now it was time to overthink a single interaction for two days.