The Girl Next Door (Chris Evans Fanfiction)

Chapter 32

A loud angry grunt came out of Erica as she accidentally stepped on a toy of Jacky's on the carpet of her bedroom floor, causing her to stumble and smack her knee into her small nightstand. She cursed from the pain while reaching out to grab the wobbling piece of furniture it caused the open drawer to fall out onto the floor and spill the contents everywhere. She was already in a bad mood today and every little thing only made it worse.

She dropped to her knees and grumbled while she grabbed the random items that had fallen out and threw them back in the drawer. Erica tucked her hair behind her ears while she kept quickly picking everything up but as soon as her eyes saw something that had fallen out, she grew still.

Erica picked up the sequin black minnie mouse ear headband that Chris had gotten her for Christmas to help add to the surprise of him proposing and taking her to Disney. Her fingers ran over the sequins, tears forming in her eyes when she thought back to finding these in the box along with the Disney ticket. The words that he said when he had put the ring on her finger replayed over and over again in her head, "I love you Erica, forever."

That sure did turn out to be the shortest forever she ever knew of.

She wanted to be angry at him. She really did. Erica wanted to be able to hate him, forget him and move on. But she couldn't. All she felt was sadness and a whole lot of it. Erica sat on her floor, crying as she thought about the first time he told her that he loved her, trying to yell it over the music at the Foo Fighters. She remembered the time that wrote her the most heartfelt note she had ever received and tied it to Dodgers collar before sending him over. Her heart ached as she thought about their Disney trip and all the fun they had or being in California and taking walks along the beach.

Erica longed for them to stay up all night just talking like they used to. She wanted to wake up in the morning with him laying next to her snoring. She wanted to hear his loud laughter while he slapped his chest. Erica just wanted him but it was over and she had to try to figure out how to move on.

Jacky lifted his head from where he was lounging on the floor and watched his master grab a cardboard box and go on a mission. Erica looked around her room and found everything of Chris' that she could and dumped it in the box. She threw in the sweatshirts and tee shirts that had made it into her closet and the Guns and Roses hat he left on her coffee table. Next the book he had been reading, some of Dodger's toys, and the expensive necklace he had given her went in the box. She rounded up a few more random things of his that had made its home at her house and ended up filling the entire box.

She just couldn't handle looking at all of it anymore. Seeing all these tiny reminders of him was like torture and she wasn't going to put herself through it any longer. Chris was hardly ever home anymore, not even normally spending the night at his house, so she knew that the coast was clear and she put a lid on the box before walking the short distance from her driveway to his with Jacky right behind her to leave the box, along with their past, on his doorstep.

While Erica was having her mini crisis at her house that morning, Chris was having his own at his mother's house. It had been a few days since Dave had come over to talk to him and as much as he tried to push the words out of his mind, they just kept haunting him. He tried to keep himself busy so that his anxiety wouldn't torture him as much although that didn't seem to work well.

"I think I'm going to have to move," Chris told his mother and sisters over breakfast after the kids had been dropped off at school.

"Do you think running away from your problems is going to solve everything?" Shanna was still angry at her brother.

Lisa, whom had sadly accepted the fact that Chris and Erica's relationship was over, told her son, "I think at some point you are going to have to talk to Erica but I do think it would be best if you moved. There's no way you can ever feel comfortable there and I think it would be better for you to move, you have the money for it."