Wish I Was Better

III

I took a breath to calm my erratic heartbeat, before carefully probing open the envelope. I took out the paper inside, subconsciously trailing over the indents the pen had made onto the parchment. Trailing over the indents the pen had imprinted onto me.

Dear Atlas,

I love you. I know it's a cliché way to start a letter, but me and you have been one tragic cliché after another, haven't we?

I'm sorry. I love you so much. I really do. But I'm not ready for this. I can't commit. I'm sorry. I can't do this like we are now, because I love you too much to ever want this to end up worse and, god forbid, I never want to hate you.

￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭￭.

She scribbled out that line, and I couldn't make out what it said. I didn't know if I wanted to, either.

You're perfect. None of this is your fault. I just need space.

I shut the letter. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill. I didn't have the heart to continue reading. Instead, I gingerly returned the letter to the envelope, and slid it into my desk drawer. It felt wrong to put it back into the box before I finished reading it.

I was about to pack away the guitar, when an absurd thought occurred to me. I picked up my phone, pushing back the lingering cloud of heart-dropping gloom that had been hovering over me. I scrolled through my apps, pausing only to open my contacts and send out a message.

Atlas: Hey. How are you?

Like before, Rowan was online immediately.

Rowan: Surviving, I guess. You?

Atlas: I'm not ok
Message deleted

What the hell was I doing?

Atlas: I'm ok.

(I've been calling you up cause I'm feeling blue)

Rowan: You sure? Jake said Brody talked to you. I'm not trying to be paranoid, but I know what 'talk' means for Brody, and I doubt it was good.

My heart dropped out of my chest. Jake had told her?

Atlas: Yeah, I'm fine. We just talked. What did Jake say?

Rowan: It was kinda ambiguous, to be fair. But I could read in between the lines pretty easily.

Atlas: I didn't know you and him still talked.

Rowan: We don't. Viv was talking to him and somehow the topic came up. I just happened to be with her at the time.

That made more sense.

I trusted Jake enough not to question why he was talking to Viv. He was my best friend, and he had all rights to talk to anyone he wanted to, and I wasn't going to grill him over keeping in touch with them. I tried to quash the melancholy that had sprouted inside of me, but it had already taken root in the pits of my stomach. Instead, I trudged down the stairs, and saw my mum in her studio room. She had her easel out and was setting up her paint palette. Painting was one of her hobbies, even if she denied that she was good at it.

She smiled at me, and I felt some of my worries melt away. "Hey darling, what happened?"

"Nothing." I said, going up to her.

She set down the palette and looked at me. She smiled, offering her arms to me. I obliged and slipped into her embrace, resting my chin on her shoulder.