Part 38- I Don't Like My Decisions

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Mia appeared sad. She didn’t show it deliberately, I knew as much, but she didn’t look like the same person I’d seen laughing at her birthday party over a month ago. It was like the life had been sapped from her, leaving her sullen and a wisp of a person.

I walked beside her, our arms almost touching as she blindly followed me like a second shadow. My jaw clenched as I bit back my words until we could be somewhere quiet. I had to at least grant her some privacy. Something told me that she hadn’t been waiting outside the theatre just to have a light-hearted chat about how poor the weather was.

I gently nudged her arm until her arm was linked with mine as I led her along in the silence of the street. Every second felt like a century, and every minute like a millennium as we walked in the quiet. If anything, that only concerned me more.

Finally, I turned off from the pavement to walk down the overgrown path which led to my little abandoned park. I liked to think of it as mine now, seeing as I’d never seen signs of anyone else being there. Mia gave a slight grunting sound of surprise as she was tugged from the pavement and her steps became jumbled. I hefted her upright and walked on, a sense of urgency present in me as we walked through the tree-tunnel until the trees parted to reveal the park to Mia’s unsuspecting eyes.

“Wow,” Mia exhaled, her arm going limp in mine.

I let go of her arm as she walked off into the grass, her gaze fixed on the tree canopy above us and consuming the green tones which mingled with the rusted reds of the swing set and climbing frames. She looked so childlike and innocent as she slowly turned around in the grass whilst she took everything in. I smiled after her as I lowered myself to sit in the mildly damp grass and watch her adjust.

“It’s pretty,” she said simply. She looked upwards again to where the sky was peering through the branches at her. A small smile coaxed itself onto her face. “It reminds me of home.”

“Home?” I prompted her.

Mia stopped gazing to shrug at me nonchalantly. “The North. There’s lots of greenery there, and I miss it. I miss it quite a lot sometimes.”

I hummed at her, unsure what I should say. Was she feeling homesick? Was that why she’d come to see me? I doubted it. Could she be feeling stressed again? She was always stressed, so maybe. Was something wrong? Had a family member died? Had someone done something to her YouTube channel? It could be a number of things.

“So what did you want to talk about?” I ended up saying.

Mia bit her lip, that sadness covering her face once more. She wandered over and sat down next to me in the long grass. The grass wavered as she sat down, the blades reaching up and tickling her as she laid herself down with her elbows propping her upright so that she could maintain eye contact with me as she spoke.

I brought my knees to my chest and regarded her intently, waiting.

She sighed. “I can’t dance around this. I just have to tell someone about it, plain and simple.” She closed her eyes and I watched her swallow hard, her strain evident. I waited for her, watched her as she internalised her struggles and prepared herself to say something, something which I could tell she was desperate to say.

“I can’t be with Dan anymore.”

That, of all the things, had been the last thing I’d expected to hear.

“You what?” I said dumbly.

She opened her eyes, revealing how watery they were as she looked me over in a panicked manner. “I c-can’t be with…Da… Dan anymore,” she repeated.

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