Chapter 154

I throw the bags down on the couch in complete rage and scrub my fingers through my hair. It’s been a bad day at school, a day I should never have endured and just stayed home with Arry again. He insisted I don’t miss any more days for him, and he promised to have dinner ready for my coming home. All day everything has just gone wrong and my partner Yvette was driving me insane with her veiled bitchiness and the constant asshole glances from my peers.

I get it! None of them like the annoying yank on a scholarship placement, it’s not exactly fucking new. I understand the jealousy, but why do they have to constantly make me feel like they do? I’m not one for being bullied by stupid girls but this is done in such a snide low way, never to my face, never anything coming back to me, so I know what they are saying. Just looks, smirks and whispers. I can’t stand any of them and I miss my real friends back home. I’m deflated, angry, upset and just so over this whole fucking situation. They know how to make me feel worthless and miserable, despite my internal pep talks.

I don’t normally let it get to me as much as today has done but I am tired with everything. Arry is leaving so soon, it’s been on my mind all day and it’s put a dampener on absolutely everything. I endured this for months and in the beginning, it was never this bad. It never got to me as much as it does now, and I am starting to come undone. I need him here; I need him for longer than snatched days and then endless weeks of separation. Sex was a quick fix and now I am back to feeling like I just want to scream and go home.

It’s sad that Janetta the housekeeper is the only other person apart from Arry that gives a shit about me in this city. There’s no one in this building who acknowledges me, even when I say “Hi” in passing, because no one speaks English and I failed to pick up any French, even now. I’ve never felt so lonely in my life, even back when I was always alone as a kid.

I miss Christian and Jenny! We call and text but it’s not the same and even the lack of our extended circle of friends gets to me too. I miss our little crew and our bowling and cinema outings. I miss my life back home. I’m so detached from all of it, like it’s no longer within my reach and not out there waiting for me anymore.

The only upside to the lack of people I can call friend is also the lack of distraction and the ability it has given me to focus on working harder. That is all I do with my life and my free time; work hard, sew and design. The better I do, the more I’m disliked, but I would never tell Arry that. He is fiercely protective and if I told him that most of the girls in my class hate me, he would go kick up shit quicker than I could blink. It would make everything so much worse for me.

He doesn’t know that no one here likes me. I could never tell him, because it’s embarrassing, and I’ve left it too long to casually drop it in after not telling him from day one. I hoped it would change, and now I feel stupid for not telling my best friend when I should have. I used to tell him everything, but it’s built up so much that I don’t even know how to anymore.

We had dinner a few times with people he met here; he’s good at that, meeting, socializing with people and making new acquaintances wherever he goes, but none of them became long term friends with him being absent so often.

Everyone always likes him, because he’s easy to like and he seems to attract new friends effortlessly. He never probes or asks why I never invite people over. It’s not like he would notice anyway as the last few months he is home so rarely that I guess he just assumes I would rather spend the time with him, the two of us when he’s here. I’m good at batting off the conversations, telling him about what I’ve been doing in his absence. He never pries much anymore, and I am so good at vague because our time is about being together so that he has never clicked that I literally have no one here at all.

He is it for me.

I stop when he wanders through from the hall, the direction of our room rather than the kitchen and immediately notice how he’s dressed, stopping me mid garment removal. Casual yet not lounging at home casual. He’s in jeans and a t-shirt with sneakers, there’s a jacket in his hand and my heart immediately drops to my feet like a boulder. We have no plans to go anywhere and he isn’t one to spring impromptu on me with zero warning very often. The look on his face says it all; this is not a surprise date night.

“Sophs… I need to talk to you.” He looks anxious, chewing on his lip and the anger consumes me immediately. Throwing my jacket off and at the couch that we never got around to changing. The same ugly couch I still hate it to this day, and I glare at him coldly.

“Don’t you dare… If you are telling me you’re leaving, Arry, I might actually throw something at you.” I snap, tears hitting my eyes instantly, hurt consuming me bitterly as I know this is exactly what this is. Bristling defensively and close to wailing hysterically. A huge weight slides down to crush me fully, hitting my chest and heart and suffocating all the air out of me painfully. This was the last thing I needed to come home to.

“Baby, I screwed up my dates for that promo we are filming in Vegas for the charity fight match in a month. I’ve to be on a flight tonight.” He looks upset, genuinely sorry, but I can’t sympathize when consumed by overwhelming pain. I turn on my heel to storm away, unable to look at him while this emotional and about to all out break down or snap monumentally. Brimming with so much chaos inside and I cannot get a handle on it right now.

“Go then… Just fucking leave.” I yell at him, without turning and stomp towards our room. Biting back tears and hating myself for being this much of a mega bitch. Arry follows me at a distance and it just makes me worse as guilt and heartache pull me in two directions.

“I didn’t do this on purpose, it’s not like I have a choice. This has been arranged for five months and I mixed up months.” He sounds irritated, tone tight and snappy at me because he’s annoyed at himself but he’s reacting to my tantrum and it only hits that erratic part of me that gets so crazily offended when he dares to be pissed at my being hurt. I spin on him to glare furiously.

“Stop being an asshole!” I cry at him. Wiping away the stray tears that manage to wriggle down my face and see him soften visually. Arry backtracking his own outbursts and that furrowed brow and tight jawline immediately straighten out.

Asshole yes, but sense enough to know this won’t do him any favors.

“I’m not being an asshole, Sophs… neither of us is happy about this. Trust me. I’m as gutted as you are.” He looks remorseful, sounds softer as he tries to close the gap between us, but I stare at him icily.

“It’s starting to feel like this is choice, that leaving for weeks on end and never being here is manufactured. Don’t you want to be with me anymore?” I let it blurt out, the deep-rooted insecurity that only ever plays havoc with my brain when I feel as low as I do today. Arry frowns at me, takes a moment to think through his words. I can see all those micro facial expressions of a guy swallowing down his knee jerk reaction and trying to ‘deal’ with his sometimes emotionally unstable girlfriend. He’s measuring his words, cooling his snap of anger because he knows when and why I get like this.

“You know that’s not true… I’m right where I want to be, right now, and if it was my decision, I would never walk out that door without you.” He inhales heavily, closing the gap between us properly as he gets closer and finally pulls me towards him by my arm and envelopes me against his body. My rigid and tense, self-defensive posture, refusing to relax in his embrace, but he ignores it and wraps himself around me as he props his chin on top of my head. Arry’s biggest tactical maneuver when dealing with me is to smother me with affection.

“It feels like you’re always anywhere but here.” I mumble brokenly, tears slipping free as I give in and sag against him. My arms find their own way around that muscular chest, despite myself and I bury my soaked face against his shirt in a bid to breathe him in. Wretched and broken.

“I am never here, baby. Don’t think you’re the only one who sees it. I know I’m never here and I keep looking forward to the end of the year and a change for us both. I’m holding onto going back to how we were and being with you every night Sophs. I hate leaving you.” He sighs, leaning into me to slide his arms lower around my waist and moves his face to mine, cheek to cheek. I close my eyes, heart plummeting at his words, at the fact I still haven’t broached the offer of a second year here and the heartbreak lets loose this time.

“What if it’s not the end? What if we had to do this for another twelve months instead?” I blurt it out like a child, sniffing, bubbling, and holding on tight because I really have no clue how he’s going to react. Fear in my heart and complete panic consuming me.

“What do you mean?” Arry pushes me back slightly so I’m forced to look up at him as he regards me with confusion. I swallow hard, finally verbalizing what I have been putting off, trying to calm myself down as his fingers trace my face and he wipes my tears away.

“They offered to extend my scholarship for my last year too.” I say it so quietly, so sure he is about to snap this time, and that knot of anxiety consumes me. Arry’s face takes on that cool, indifferent blankness that he is crazily good at, even still. Unreadable and I have no idea what’s going through his head right now. He’s shielding me from whatever instant reaction he is having, which is never a good thing.

“Is that what you want to do?” He sounds and looks so emotionally deadpan that I’m getting nothing at all. Not even a tiny hint, which usually means he is inwardly thinking ‘No. Never.’

“I don’t know… I want to know what you think I should do.” My lip quivers with nerves, his hold on me hasn’t changed but he is focusing on me intensely.

Just be honest, Arry! Say it for god’s sake.

“This is your decision, baby. Not mine. This is your career, your choice.” He strokes back hair from my face gently, giving me some insight that he’s not that mad at least, but it doesn’t relax me. I know emotional cool is his way of saying ‘Not that happy about this.’

“I want to know what you want too… This is our life, Arry, not just mine.” I narrow my eyes on him, wiping my face with my cardigan sleeve but he catches my wrist to lower my arm, leaning close to rest his forehead against mine in one of our most familiar poses. Nose to nose, eye to eye.

“I want for you to be happy… To do what you need to do to graduate in the best way for you. If we have to do this for another year, then we will. We can get through it.” Arry isn’t looking too convincing and I push myself against him firmly.

“Promise me we can get through this if it’s what I choose. Promise me, we won’t break. That I won’t lose you.” I cling to him, tears filling my eyes as I sigh heavily and try to swallow down the torrent of emotions. Fingers finding their own way to his jawline and cupping the face I love more than life.

“You can’t break what we have, Mimmo. We’re special. Love like ours has no breaking point. You will never lose us because neither would survive without the other. We’re like a bee and a flower; one needs the other for either to exist.” He pushes my face back with fingers on my chin, soft and heart wrenchingly sincere, bending in to kiss me softly on the mouth while still looking deep into my eyes. My heart dissolves at the sheer intimacy of the moment.

“You’re such a geek sometimes.” I laugh through runny sniffs, feeling less ready to commit murder and just sad and resigned to what’s happening here.

“I know. It’s why you can never hate me.” He pulls back to gaze at me from a more normal angle.

“I’m still mad at you for leaving me.” I inhale again to clear my sinuses and Arry frowns.

“You can’t be mad when I go… You know I have a serious problem with ever walking away from you mid-fight, baby. I did it once and it haunts me still.” He squeezes me tighter, pulling me back under his chin to hug crushingly and I don’t fight him. Remembering exactly what night he is talking about. A night where I genuinely feared I would never see him again and I never want to feel that way ever again in my lifetime. I close my eyes and hold tight, hating that even while dying with disappointment I still need him.

“I don’t want you to go… It’s too soon.” I press my face to his chest and try so hard to mold us into one, so he has no chance of leaving me.

“I don’t want to go… I have no choice. I made a commitment to this event, Sophs, it’s important. It’s for my mom’s charity, the same one that brought you into my life.” He tilts my chin back and stares at me, completely torn. He knows I cannot refuse him when it’s for that reason. I owe everything to that charity for saving me from a life that was heading nowhere good.

“You suck.”

“Come with me, take a few days off and just come this time. I hate this, Sophs … I hate doing this to you.” Arry’s determined, he has this idea in his head and now he is running with it. A solution to his current predicament.

“I can’t. I have my show in seven days, you know this, and I have still almost a week’s worth of last-minute fittings and stuff to do for it too.” I’m forlorn and just sigh with him.

Arry lifts his wrist and checks his watch and I sense him tense. I know without asking that he probably needs to go now, or very soon, and I’m clinging on desperately.

“My cab will be here in five minutes, baby. I really need to get my bags downstairs. I can’t miss this flight, or I’ll be late for the shoot tomorrow morning.” Arry leans in and kisses me again, this time with more meaning, closing eyes and gently opening my lips to his. His tongue sensually caressing mine with a tender yet passionate caress that makes my stomach erupt in fireworks. He pulls away after a minute and brushes back my hair kissing me on the forehead affectionately.

“You better be back here in six days.” I frown at him sternly, no longer crying, but empty, nonetheless.

“I promised you, didn’t I? … I left you mac and cheese in the oven, don’t forget to turn it off the warm setting it’s on. I put some cake in the fridge for you and Janetta is coming over at seven am to make you pancakes, clean up and check everything is off. Do not use the kitchen to cook food, please. Promise me?” He pulls me with him as he walks towards our bedroom, leaving me in the hall as he ducks in to grab his case and I try to ignore the heavy weight in my chest that’s threatening to crush me.

“Aye aye, Captain” I mock salute him, lacking any humor or enthusiasm and Arry sighs again, laying down his case for one last hug because he can tell that I am really not okay. He squeezes me so tight it almost hurts.

“I love you so much, Sophie. Don’t ever forget that. This is all temporary… We will get through this. I’ll be back in a few days.” He hits me with a chaste peck on the lips and scoops for his bag, swiping his messenger bag from the side table that he normally keeps his passport and such in and puts them both over his head to settle on his body.

“Six days.” I repeat numbly, watching him get himself ready to leave as I follow him to the main door.

“I know. I’ll call you every day and every night till I’m home.” He throws me that cute half smile of his with those irresistible dimples and I cave. Smiling, throwing myself into him one more time as he kisses me on top of the head.

“I love you.” I bury my face against him and let him give me one more squeeze, one more hold, one more inhale before he leaves me again.

“I love you more.”

And then he’s letting me go and he’s gone again. I don’t follow him to the door or watch him leave like I used to, it just prolongs the agony and I don’t look out the window to peer at the street for his departing taxicab. Instead I wander back to my room and lay on the bed and wonder what the point is anymore, in anything, when he isn’t here with me.