How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

43.

I wondered, if after I pressed the send button if Flint would go into some kind of frenzy about me bringing someone to Thanksgiving. I thought that he would get really mad or something like that before showing mom the text, but maybe that's what I would expect from them, or rather what I hoped they would do.

None of us moved from our spots for a good two minutes, we kind of just thought we would get a response pretty quickly, but there was absolutely nothing. Not even a notification sound from other stupid apps that I have on my phone.

Eventually, Chase and Axel went back to his room and Tess went back to the kitchen to work on something I couldn't see from where I was standing.

I barely took one step, I felt that I was pretty much glued to the floor until I would get a text back. I was there for an hour, obviously not just doing nothing while I waited, but nevertheless, it must have been forever.

My phone buzzes and chirps in my tired hands and finally, I feel the fire bringing me back to life.

"He texted!" I shout, but Tess is the only one to come rushing over.

"What does it say?!" she asks excitedly.

I take a second to read it before I repeat it to her.

"Cool, see you next weekend."

"What else does it say?" Tess questions more.

"That's it," I tell her a little disappointed, "I thought they would be happy to hear from me. Maybe they really are still mad at me. Like not just a little mad, but like really mad, to the point where Thanksgiving just becomes an excuse to get me home so they can murder me and erase me from history."

"Wow there," Tess says elongating her words, "Don't you think that's a little dark?"

"Like my soul?" I say, only wishing I could flop over and hide from reality, "Yeah, you're probably right."

I watch her perk up all of a sudden, grabbing me by the shoulders, "Look on the bright side of things. At least they, well your brother, messaged you back. If he didn't care about you then he probably wouldn't even have reached out to you in the first place."

I think everyone's natural response would be to be all happy and jolly, but I seemed to be having a hard time sparking that side of my brain.

"Yeah..." I say gloomily, shrugging my entire body.

"Do I need to be melted Elsa or something?" She asks.

"Melted who?" I question, confused if I actually heard her right.

"Elsa!" She chimes, "From Frozen!"

I still stand there with my face, probably making a constipated look.

Tess shakes her head a little, "She made Olaf a cloud that snowed. I thought maybe if I melted her a little I would make you your own little rain cloud. It's too convoluted-"

I cut her off. "Yeah it is," I reply, but this time I'm trying to hide the chuckles rising up in me.

She claps her hands together jumping with joy, "Yes! I finally got you to smile!"

That smugly joyful expression on her face made it quite clear to me that I was wrapped around her finger.

"Well," she continues, "you better run off to go beg for that weekend off before it's too late."

"Yeah, I really should, shouldn't I?" I say scrunching my face.

I run across the floor, but I make sure to plant a kiss on Tess' cheek.

"I love you," I say wishing that I could scream it from the top of a mountain.

Quickly, I run to throw on the closest clothes I can catch from the corner of my eye. Before I knew it, I was flying out the front door with only half the buttons buttoned up on my fall coat.

I had no idea how I managed to pull it off, but my boss agreed to give me the weekend off. Those ten minutes seemed to go through one ear and out the other. I couldn't remember a single moment, but my mind was in a flutter of queries.

I kept pulling on the collar of my coat, just trying to do anything with my hands rather than nothing at all. It didn't do much, but keep my hands from getting cold on the walk home.

Maybe you were able to bring up some sort of tear. I try to recall. No, wait! You told him that your dog died. ...We don't have a dog, so nevermind! ...Did you actually cry though? I feel like you did at some point, or are you just making memories up now?

I almost trip over the curb when I realize that I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking.

Wow! That was a close one. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, crying! Crying... So did you cry?

I wipe away under my eyes trying to feel for anything that might give me a clue, yet I found no such luck.

So you didn't cry... Maybe we should think about this in a simpler way... What did the café look like? Was it full? ...Not really, but that's okay cause at least you can remember something.

I wasn't really sure if I was just telling myself all these things because I didn't want to remember or if I was trying to distract myself from the big picture, the ultimate end game. Or maybe I'm just a really big idiot.

Be real with yourself, you remember absolutely everything.

But you don't!

Oh shut up, you do!

Yeah I do, but -WWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAA!

My knees hit the pavement and my hands tried to catch my body from falling any further. My phone slid out of my pocket a few feet away from me and for a moment I was worried about how much it would cost me to get it fixed if that happened to be the case.

The most unnerving thing, however, was the two legs I could see off to the left side of me.

"Are you alright?" he asks in such a familiar accent.