𝘽-𝙎𝙞𝙙𝙚

Ｐｏｍｐｅｉｉ

Ｓｉｘｔｅｅｎ-Ｐｏｍｐｅｉｉ

I woke up to harsh whispering all around me. I lift my head up groggily and see Rhys and Ara arguing.

"How could you do that to her?" Rhys asks, pulling at his hair while staring Ara down. Ara stays strong under his gaze, refusing to back down as she cooly says,

"I don't know what she's talking about." She says, looking at my form that was covered by Rhy's blanket.

"What if she was getting the hallucinations again? You know she still gets them after Alex left her." She says softly, trying to not wake me up. At this point, I was done with all her crap. I pushed the blanket off me and stared her down.

"What did you say?" I raise my voice, my voice trembling out of fear. Suddenly a ringing breaks the silence, it was Ara's phone. She picks up the phone and presses it to her ear,

"Yes Archie?" She asks and I swear the ice in my veins turned to fire. She betrayed me to be Archie's friend. That's a new low, even for her. She smiles and jumps around the loft,

"Yes! I would love to be your personal assistant." The happiness leaks out of her voice as Rhys stares at her, disgusted. I wait for her to finish the call before I start yelling at her, since I seem to be the only person to have manners. She cuts the phone and looks at us,

"I got a job for Archie y'all."

"How did you get it? Tell me the truth." I say, looking her dead in the eyes. She frowns,

"He asked me a couple of questions and I answered them, no biggie." She says, her voice raising an octave in pitch, telling me that she was lying.

"Did he ask about my past relationships?" I ask, my voice wavering as Rhys grabs my hand in encouragement.

"Yes, I just thought that he was going to set you up with Tommy. Y'all are a cute couple." She says softly, playing with her hands.

"You have no right to talk about things that don't have to do with you." I say, as I tighten my hand over Rhys's. Her expression morphs to one of anger as she starts to scream,

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to take care of you? I had to build you up from the bottom, the very bottom. Your self confidence was crushed and you thought that you were useless. I should have been paid for taking care of you for that long. I should have just left you there crying on the floor of my apartment lobby. Oh well, you live and you learn." She says with disgust as I look for my phone. I dial the phone number for the plane company that Ara booked. Rhys looked at me with sympathy,

"What are you doing?" He asks as I look for the plane tickets.

"I'm cancelling my plane ticket." I say as I pull out the ticket from my backpack.

"Count me in." He says just as a flight representative picks up the phone.

"Hello, British Airways, Anya speaking. How can I help you?"

"Hi, I'd like to cancel a flight that I reserved." I say, grabbing Rhys's ticket as well,

"Ok. Do you have the number for the plane and the passenger' name?" She asks as I relay the information.

"Thank you for calling, your tickets have been cancelled Mrs. Monet."

"No, thank you." I breathe into the phone as I hang up. I walked over to Ara as she was getting ready for her meeting with Archie. I rip the tickets and her eyes widen,

"What did you do?" She yells, trying to gather the pieces of the tickets,

"I cancelled both Rhy's and my tickets since you needed to be paid for taking care of your best friend. We will be booking our own flights and will be leaving tomorrow." I say, before exiting her room.

She walks out of the house, her heels clacking aggressively with each step. I slump down in my chair grabbing my ring in comfort. Rhys looks at me with pity as I burst into tears,

"Thank you for staying." I say, clutching to his sleeve. He picks me up setting me into his lap, like a caring brother would do to his sister.

"Let's find a flight for tomorrow." He murmurs, opening his Macbook and going to Trivago.

I nod and bury myself into his chest, inhaling Rhys's calming scent of the woods. He strokes my hair softly and I love the feeling that his ring provides over my hot head. He hums a couple minutes later,meaning that he found a flight for us.

He clicks the link and pulls out his credit card starting the process to pay. My hand grabs his card,

"Why are you paying?" I ask, he paid for all of our tickets. It would be unfair that he had to pay for the flights.

"You paid for the house and you can't get a refund since you're leaving early. This will make us equal okay?" He grabs my chin gently, smiling when he sees me nod. He pushes my face into his shoulder as he answers the security questions.

My phone dings, meaning that I got a message from someone. I check the notification as I notice that it was Tommy.

From: Tommy

I heard about what happened. I'm sorry Stargirl.

To: Tommy

It's not your fault. I'll be leaving London tomorrow. I'm really sorry I don't get to tell you this in person.

From: Tommy

It's fine Stargirl. I understand. Just promise that you'll visit later okay?

To: Tommy

Promise.

From: Tommy

You have talent Stargirl, stay in the writing business okay? Love you.

I smile, looking up at Rhys. He looks down at me,

"What happened Tal?"

"Nothing Rhys." I chuckle getting up and packing to get ready to leave. I sit there, preoccupied in my thoughts.

It took one word to break a strong friendship that was made with pinky promises and hugs. We all thought that it would never break, that it was an impenetrable wall. But it wasn't, was it? Well, Pompeii took forever to build but took two seconds to fall.