Breaking Up Backwards

5 | Eat, Sleep, Wake

Listening to:

Eat, Sleep, Wake – Bombay Bicycle Club

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December 16th, 2016

TIM

          Tim was frowning. "I'm not going."

          Greg stared at Tim with angry eyes, the gray depths awash in a storm. His mouth was pressed in a firm line and there was a pause in what he was going to say, the eggshells he'd been walking on all week seemingly still crunching under his foot.

          "I know what you're going through, but-"

          "Greg," Tim groaned, rolling into the couch so that his face was snug against the backrest, "you have absolutely no idea. You and Mikayla have been inseparable since senior year and you just...you don't know. So, can you please...?" He motioned for Greg to leave.

          "Okay, but-"

          He didn't know why, but his friend never took a loss in a situation that needed Tim to pay attention. But today, this week especially, Tim couldn't do it.

          "I just need to lay here for a bit, alright?" There was silence and Tim let out a sigh of relief.

          Finally.

          He needed to be alone tonight, but the same could be said about the seven days that had passed. His body was numb and his heart hurt every lingering second and being still and trying to sleep his day away helped to a point. But behind his closed eyelids he saw her, her famous smile and her big brown eyes made of milk chocolate, though they resembled light amber honey in the sun.

          "You know what? Fuck you," he heard Greg mutter and Tim assumed he had accepted defeat for once in his life. He waited to hear the front door slam.

          Instead, he felt hands roughly plant themselves on his shoulders. "You brought this on yourself and you just need to – come on – Tim, get off the couch." With the urgency of Greg's grubby fingers prying him away, Tim felt his instincts kick in and he grabbed onto the cushions, holding them close as he manifested himself as deadweight.

          "Dude! Seriously?"

          Finally warding the blond off, Tim sat up with a grunt. A musky smell followed his movements and he could feel the grease that lathered his mop of hair. He wondered when he last took a shower or held a hairbrush. Was it three days? Was it that day?

          Greg, as annoying as he was, was the only reason he felt bad about how he was acting. His roommate watched with judgemental and sad eyes, documenting in a photo album on his phone the fall of Timothy Matthews. It started with smudged glasses -Tim couldn't stand smudged glasses- and really peaked when Greg had come home after class to see him face-first on the floor, their playlist playing.

          Tim couldn't meet his friend's eyes, and he leaned forward to grab his beer instead. Was she thinking about him? Did she think about that time in the snow and the coffee that shot out of his nose when she had said something (inappropriately) funny? The way she couldn't stop giggling and the way he had cried still played for him in vivid colours.

          "Jesus," Greg ground out. He was quicker than Tim, and he snatched the bottle to put it all the way on the other side of the room - out of reach and out of sight - as if Tim was Mister Fantastic.