Far Love (Book 1)

28 | Madison Barrs

October 30th, 2023

I sit in the middle of Warren's condo-that's just down the hall from Amy's-watching as he makes tea in the kitchen.

His girlfriend wraps her arms around his waist from the back and she giggles at something he whispers to her.

For the past four minutes, I've been trying to not watch them flirt, but it is hard when what they have is the thing I'd wanted most with Dylan. To just be around him.

Now it looks like I won't even get to speak a word to him ever again.

Warren turns around, his girlfriend, Clary, turning with him, still clutching his waist. "I hope you like pomegranate tea,"

"It's my favorite," I smile politely.

He walks over, Clary following him, and then hands me a cup. She plops down into a chair at the dining table, pulling open her laptop. Something seems different about her. She feels like a young spirit-which isn't bad-and it makes it feel oddly refreshing to be around her.

"So," I start. A couple of hours ago when Warren had called me to ask if I could come over, I was surprised. I'd thought that when he came over on Thursday it meant that we wouldn't have to meet and talk about all this stuff again-not that I minded. Almost anything seems like a great price to get my story out into the world.

I scoot forward on the cushion-it's hard like he doesn't sit on it a lot-and look over at his girlfriend. She makes me nervous. Not because she is his girlfriend, but because I didn't want anyone to know this stuff-not at least right now. I want to be the one to tell my story.

I nod toward her, and gesture toward the screen of his laptop. He promised to not tell anyone about the project we are working on after I asked the following morning to not tell anyone.

He nods, understanding, and turns backward in his armchair toward her. "Hey, Clary, could you leave us to work on this for a while?"

She nods and walks to her room easily. He turns back to me and his laptop on the coffee table.

"Thank you," I murmur.

He nods, zeroing in on the laptop. "I just wanted to get your opinion on what I have marked up as an outline so far. Maybe I can get started on writing the actual piece with me today, if you want that."

"Yeah, that's good," I say as he hands me the laptop.

I set it on my legs and scan it before pulling my eyes back to the top to read more thoroughly. When I'm done I nod. "This seems good so far, could we add in a little bit more about Amy though?" This article isn't just for me, it's also for Mara and Amy, the people I consider my real family.

He looks at the outline, "What would you like to add?"

"Isn't this your article to write? You should be the one that is choosing what you want to put in it at the end of the day."

He shakes his head, looking over my face, "No. I don't want to make a profit off of something you would have written differently."

I feel my cheeks heat. He seemed to be the only stranger lately who seemed to care how I felt. Not even Dylan liked doing that lately it seemed. The missed phone calls and texts would attest to that.

I'd finally sucked up and sent a text last night, tired of not being able to figure out how to fix this thing between us. When I sent it, I thought at first that I had bad service, but when the little blue bar at the top of the screen reached the right side of my screen, I slowly realized something. He's blocked me. I cried on the phone to my friends, wishing I had just gone back to LA instead of trying to run from my issues like a little girl.