BLOOM • awsten knight

63

OCTOBER 2018

Jawn visits Awsten in Los Angeles.

He gets a Lyft from the airport to his new apartment, and Awsten knows something is up.

It takes him almost an hour to say anything about it, though.

"What's up with you?" He turns to Jawn, with an odd look.

"What?"

"I don't know, there's clearly something you need to say," Awsten observes, able to notice that he has words that he's practically itching to let roll off of his tongue.

Jawn takes a short pause and looks at him. "You didn't tell me you guys broke up," he says, watching Awsten's face drop.

"It was hardly a fucking breakup, Jawn," he responds, dryly. "We were never together."

"Well, whatever it was then," Jawn shakes his head, knowing he wants to avoid talking about this for longer than he has to. "You didn't tell me."

"So, who did tell you?" Awsten raises an eyebrow. "Did you speak to Geoff?"

"You told Geoff," Jawn repeats, unsure of whether he's questioning him or not, "but, not me."

"Don't get fucking jealous," he rolls his eyes. "I didn't feel the need to cry to more than one person, okay? That was more than enough," Awsten mumbles.

He knew Geoff would be more gentle about it than Jawn would; Geoff didn't have the same harsh tone that Jawn has right now, which is the main reason why he went to him instead.

Plus, Awsten hates it when people see him cry; he almost broke down in front of Elle, and he couldn't let that happen, which is part of the reason why he left so abruptly. He didn't want to have a complete meltdown to more people than he had to.

"I'll ask again," Awsten speaks up, after a moment of quiet. "Did you speak to Geoff?"

"I spoke to Elle," Jawn answers, and he almost chokes.

"You what?" His eyes widen.

"Don't act so fucking surprised, Awsten," Jawn deadpans. "I'm still friends with her, and I didn't know what happened, until she answered the door mid-breakdown."

"She-" Awsten starts, before frowning. "Mid-breakdown?"

"Yeah, mid-breakdown," he repeats. "It's like she didn't even mean to answer the door, like she just did it automatically, and she was just crying."

"Why wa-" Awsten begins again, his eyebrows still drawn together tightly. "How come you were at her place anyway?"

"I saw she still wasn't online," Jawn shrugs. "And I thought she might be lonely, with you not there, so I brought her some snacks and stuff. I don't know, tried to cheer her up, see if she was okay."

"Oh," Awsten nods, slowly. "That's nice," he murmurs.

"Man, what happened?" Jawn asks, with a more concerned expression.

"We talked," Awsten answers. "Except, it didn't really end up like talking. It turned into more shouting, and arguing," he scrunches his face up, as if she can hear the way they both raised their voices all over again. "I said some shitty things, and so did she."