Stuck with a Punk ✔

No. 85: Confessing

She'll say no. She'll say no. This answer is written all over her face that is gazing back at me, that face that I've missed so much, and that face that is so vividly emanating distrust and fear. 

Standing here before her feels surreal. It's like I'm watching a movie and everything is happening before my eyes, but I'm not the one driving the action. 

I'm ruffled with so many mixed feelings I can barely feel the ground beneath my feet. I'm at a loss of words that can describe how happy I am to see her. However, her fearful and reluctant eyes make me wish I've never done this, that I've stayed at home, dwelled in self-loathing and left what happened between Annabelle and me at that. 

I seriously can't believe I'm actually here. When I sat down with Patty and Daniel for lunch after my utter breakdown and thought that I'd like to have all the dynamic I had with Annabelle back, I did not believe I'd end up here, at her apartment. When I lied down to bed last night, sure that maybe I at least need to try, there was a speck of me that was sure I'd change my mind after having slept for a bit. Even when I was on my way to her apartment building, I was not entirely convinced I would go through it, but that I merely came here to stare at her window, maybe catch a glimpse of her, and then drive back home. 

But I'm really here. I'm actually doing this. 

Some part of me is pulsating with the urge to tell her I came here to pay her for babysitting Devon for the last week and just leave. Shutting it down is impossible because it always ends up resurfacing. If it begins with a mere whisper, it returns with a loud scream after being shut down for a mere second. 

I don't want to do that, though. As Patty said, it was up to me to decide for one or the other, and here I am, so... This is what I'm doing. Except that it's abnormally hard. I can't think of a single thing to say. That 'hi' was the only thing I remembered from a sort of speech I've prepared and now I feel stupid as fuck for coming here. 

The only thing we're doing is standing and looking at each other. I understand her silence, it's not up to her to make a move, or fix it, I know damn well it's all up to me. But I also understand my silence, one of the only things I happen to understand right now. If I say one wrong thing, this is all pointless, so... Saying nothing seems safer, but only if it lasted for about ten seconds, not a whole fat minute. 

"Uh... C-can we t-" And when I finally do gather the courage to say a simple sentence that suggests nothing, that can't have a bad connotation to it, I choke on the sounds of it. Just like that, I feel my entire plan, everything that I aspire to achieve today, crumbling to dust. Annabelle just stands there patiently, her expression remaining the same as before, there is not a single tug between her brows or at the corner of her lips that would give me a hint of her annoyance. I don't know if I like it or hate it. "C-can we talk?"

I do my best to hide how breathless and relieved I am from managing to finally get it out. Annabelle does not react immediately but stares back at me as if she's deciding if that'd be a good idea, which I can't argue with. She let me in once and looked at how it all ended... However, she ends up opening the door just for a tad, giving me only the slightest and minimal signals about anything. At this point, I'm grasping for straws, and when she opens the door only for a little bit, I notice it. 

I walk into her apartment realising that my legs are barely keeping me up, but sitting down seems... If I sit down now, I'll only get up a moment later. 

Annabelle, behind me, closes the doo r but stays close to it, maybe getting ready for asking me to leave. Her position there makes me think of what I'm expecting to hear - a no, a straight big fat no. I wait to see if she's going to go stand anywhere else, but she securely stays where she is. In shorts and a pink oversized knit pullover with a wide collar that's exposing one of her shoulders, she is hugging herself, only every now and then glancing at me, otherwise always looking down diagonally.