If It's With You

021- Avoiding him

This chapter is dedicated to watermelonsugarpie

Muna

“I had fun working with you today, Muna,” Morgan said, driving her car to a stop. Looking at the passenger’s seat where I was seated, she added, “I hope we get to do this again some other time.”

“Same, let’s do this again soon,” I said, grinning.

After meeting up with Morgan last time, we decided to fix a day to work together. It was a good day for us and we had a lot of fun filming some nice restaurant reviews, and visiting some beautiful spots in New York.

Finally, we had a heart-to-heart conversation over some ice cream. It was a lot of talking, especially on the pressure that comes with being an influencer and creating content. For me, it was the best part of everything. I loved talking. I loved discussing topics like that and being an influencer has its ups and downs.

She turned to the back seat and grabbed my bag, where I had my cameras packed. “Hit me up when you’re done working on the video,” she said, handing the bag to me.

“Sure,” I pushed the car door open. “Thanks for the ride and bye Morgan.” I waved at her before alighting from the car with my camera bag and purse in the other hand.

She waved back at me, wearing a smile on her face. After I shut her car door, I stood at the same spot and watched her drive into the road until she was out of my sight. Until then, I turned to Julia’s coffee shop where I had been working for some days now, more like helping fill Katie’s space.

She had something urgent to attend to, something that had taken her out of the city. Julia tried working alone but after the first day, she had asked for my help since no one had shown up for the employee sign she put up.

I had some experience working at a few coffee shops when I was in high school, so when she called asking if I could help, I accepted to do the work. Not only had it kept me busy, but conversing with people over the counter had kept me thinking about Nicklaus at a minimum rate.

I told Julia that I would only work for her if she could manage to keep Nicklaus away from the coffee shop. To my surprise, she agreed without seeming to have a problem with it. And had also kept her promise.

I had avoided Nicklaus as much as I could, playing dead each time he knocked at my door, calling out my name. I had avoided his calls and texts perfectly well, just like I had avoided Julia’s questions asking what went wrong.

But the thought of him always found its way into my mind, and even when I tried to stop myself from thinking about him, I did. The image of us kissing in the elevator, the image of us skating while holding hands, and finally the image of him kissing Ashley. That particular image always caused me a different type of heartache.

Sometimes, I wanted to give in and talk to him but I wasn’t ready, I knew I wasn’t because I was still hurting. And sometimes, there was this voice in my head accusing me of overreacting, and making me feel embarrassed.

I pushed the door open and there Julia was attending to an old man, who I recognized. He was a regular here. He was saying something to her, something that was making her smile so hard. I sauntered towards Julia, who was yet to see me.

We agreed I wouldn’t show up today, it was supposed to be my free day since I was going to be filming some content. But I couldn’t. So I asked Morgan for us to film half of the day. I wanted to come in and help Julia, I was enjoying working for her and these past few days, I had come to know more about her. She had opened up on some things I never knew, I would ever get to know about her.