How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

44.

I watch the legs walk over to my phone, still lying on the ground, and pick it up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I reply putting one foot under me at a time.

I'm dusting myself off, kind of afraid to look up for a few seconds, but when I do I'm a little surprised.

"Are you sure?" the man asks handing me my phone back, "You took quite the fall."

I take it back and shove it in my pocket, but it wasn't really what was catching my attention anymore.

It's not him! No, this guy is definitely not him. This guy's blond, he doesn't even dress like... His jeans are rolled up at the hem and his jacket practically matches that, not to mention I very much admire his selection in striped socks. Wow, Claire, stop! Say something, you probably look like an idiot right now.

"Really, I am," I finally say, pushing some of my hair behind my right ear, "Thank you."

"It was a pleasure," he says, giving me a little wave and bow before heading off to wherever he was going.

I almost thought of stopping him in his tracks and just yelling out to him, "Hey are you from the west coast of Ireland?". Then, maybe he would respond with something like this, "Yeah, how did you know?", for which I would reply, "Lucky guess...". I'm not entirely sure where it would go to from there, but maybe there is a possibility that-

Claire, just because he's from that one area you went to for a few days doesn't mean he knows... well, you know who.

I didn't understand why I was giving this so much thought, cause I shouldn't. My assumptions could be all wrong, but he's the only one who could really answer that and he's gone.

And now, the only person left in your head is... Jack.

The weekend was finally looming over us and we had just shoved the last bag into the back of Chase's car. I was worried we wouldn't be able to fit everything three people would need for a weekend, yet somehow we managed it and before we knew it we were all off to Ottawa.

I was the only one to sit in the backseat beside the mountain of dirty laundry Chase was bringing back for his mom to wash. If anybody's the epitome of a university student it's him. He will say he's tired until about nine o'clock at night where he will then go out, probably to the café that sort of ends up turning to a bar by that time, and then find himself a one night stand. Although his one night stands have all been with Axel, he keeps saying our definition is wrong. I know he knows what a one night stand really means, he's not that daft, plus I just think he might have been bitten by the love bug.

My eyes would open up and close intermittently throughout our drive home. For the minutes I found myself awake, I did nothing but watch trees mostly go by again. It's, unfortunately, the biggest thing you will probably see when travelling from one city to another in Ontario, that's not to say you won't come by an On Route if you're on a major highway.

It must have been a couple hours in when I woke up to hear the two in the front of the car playing the ultimate road trip game, I Spy.

"I spy," Tess laughs, "something that consists of hydrogen."

"Hydrogen?" Chase scratches his head.

"Yeah, hydrogen," she repeats in an obviously apparent manner.

Chase spends a good few minutes trying to figure it out, trying to see what she can see. You could tell when he eventually gave up. His whole body just relaxed back into his seat and he let out a huge huff.

"Ok," he says defeated, "I give up. What is it?"

"Humidity!" she shouts.

"Humidity?!" he replies just as loud.

He looks at Tess like she's absolutely crazy.

"Where the hell do you see humidity?" he asks.

She shakes her head in response, "It's in the air."

If he didn't need both of his hands to drive I'm sure he would have face-palmed himself.

"Yeah, but you can't see it! At least not right now," he tells her.

I, on the other hand, just had a smug grin on my face as I snuggled myself back to sleep in my corner of the car.

When I opened my eyes again, the sky had gone dark and we were no longer in the company of nature. Instead, we were driving down the crowded roads leading up to my house. We had gotten so close and I couldn't tell if I was scared or anxious. I just felt like I was in a state where I was completely frozen in this one neverending moment in between one heartbeat and the next.

Chase finally turned the corner maybe a couple hundred feet from my house and I started to make sure I had cleaned up after myself. And once he parked in our extremely small driveway, I unbuckled my seatbelt and I opened the door to get out. Tess was only seconds behind me. It took no more than two seconds to grab our bags from the trunk and Chase left.

My ears felt like they were on mute until I knocked on the front door. Tess stayed close to me, squeezing my hand behind my back.

I could hear my mom's footsteps pattering up to the door before she flung it open.

"Claire!" she smiles before pulling me into a bone-crushing hug, while Tess still held on to me.

She's not mad? I thought she would be mad?

My mom pulls back, but she still has her hands on my shoulders.

"Flint, your sister's here!" she yells back into the house.

I knew he wouldn't keep her waiting, so Flint came to the front without question.

"So this is your friend," he says, suggesting towards Tess.

Our hands were still entwined, so clasp on to her tighter.

"She's my girlfriend."