Undone [Completed]

Undone: [Eighteen]

Dedicated to you. Yes, you.

XVIII - Max

I owed Nick an apology more than I did Ryan, but I hadn’t been able to pick the phone up and call him. I’d like to say that I wasn’t sure why that was, but I did - equal parts of different types of guilt mixed up: first, if I did call, he’d accept my apology and continue to be a good friend to me, which I didn’t deserve, and second, at some point the conversation would lead to his girlfriend, which I couldn’t take any more of. Sure, I knew that technically, all it took was for me to let her in a little, and then Nick wouldn’t be stuck in between us, and it would be all be alright, but I was being selfish.

I didn’t like her, and I didn’t want to be her friend!

But Nick does.

I ignored it, and when the voice only got louder, pulled the blanket over my body with a soft groan and shut my eyes tight.

*

“Hey.” His greeting was tentative, hesitant.

I took a moment before responding. She wasn’t around, and he seemed somewhat…calm - not that he’d been especially angry the day before - and I smiled. It was refreshing, and hope began to bubble up – maybe we could just forget about the day before and things would be normal again. “Hey.”

“How’s it going?”

For a second, I was taken aback by how cordial he was sounding, and it stung somewhat too, but then, I had no right to complain - I’d been doing the same to him for a while now, after all. And just because I wanted to forget the day before didn’t mean he had already.

Don’t make it worse.

“It’s alright. How about with you?” I felt myself cringe as soon as the words had passed my lips. It was as if we hadn’t seen each other in days, and that wasn’t exactly ‘not making things worse’- I didn’t think. “Okay, no,” I let out a shaky laugh before he could respond, “I mean, yeah, I’m alright, and I think you are too,” bite the damn bullet, “are we okay though?”

I didn’t particularly want to, but I made it a point to match his gaze.

He looked at me, quiet for an instant, as though he were trying to decide whether or not I meant it. I was tempted to elaborate, or something, explain to him that I just didn’t like talking to ‘new’ people anymore, which included his girlfriend, and that while I knew it was putting him in an awkward place, I didn’t have the guts to deal, but I remained mum. He continued his analysis for a minute longer before allowing a wry smile to play on his lips and shaking his head.

“Yeah, yeah we are,” he nodded, “and I’m sorry for snapping at you yesterday.”

“I’m the one who should apologize. I didn’t mean to zone out or anything, I just…” I stopped, realizing that it might not be as good an idea as I thought it was, only to have myself continue because of Nick’s questioning look, “well, I don’t like feeling like I’m under a microscope, you know?”

When he didn’t react, I felt the need to explain myself. “I mean, I get that I appear to be that cold guy that seems to hate her for no reason, but she makes me feel like I’m being analyzed and studied and…it’s not a nice feeling, you know?”

He nodded again, slowly this time. “I can appreciate that.”

He looked thoughtful, and all I can say is that it was just was well that he wanted to add something else because I didn’t know what would constitute the correct response to his statement.