Chapter Text
I tossed my rubber ball into the air and caught it with disinterest, sinking in my pillow. My phone was sitting next to me, and Aidy’s voice was keeping me company during on the many boring afternoons leading up to my flight.
“Do you need me to come get you at the airport?” she asked.
“Yeah, if it’s no problem with you.”
“Yeah, of course. If it’s not me, it’ll be Cecily, if not her Vanessa, and if not her then—”
“Nope. Stop right there,” I interrupted her, launching the rubber ball in the air and letting it fall on the floor. “Don’t say her name.”
“It’s been two months, you need to get over it. You’ll have to work together, all year, anyway,” she groaned. “By the way, she’s not here in New York anyway… I was going to say Conner.”
I didn’t want to be Kate’s friend. It was a childish reason, but after what she had put me through, I couldn’t stand being nice to her. Or maybe, it was because I hadn’t stopped loving her, even after our breakup.
With summer coming to an end and fall fast approaching, I prepared myself with the thought of having Kate next to me all day, all night, having to witness her being her usual, beautiful self and not be able to do anything.
Months had passed, but the pain and anger were still very much present, if not even more intense. I feared that we might end up screaming at each other the whole time, instead of working, and say even more ferocious things than what we had already said.
“I don’t want to see her yet…” I sighed. “I have all season to be next to her.”
“Your wish is my command.”
We talked a little more, and when we hung up I was left staring at the ceiling lifelessly. As much as I desired getting over Kate and hating her for playing me during the entirety of our relationship, I couldn’t just leave her in the past. We had lived something so beautiful and unforgettable, that ignoring it would have never been possible.
“Are you okay?” Lena’s voice beside me startled me.
I wasn’t expecting her to be awake, and I wondered how much she had heard from my conversation with Aidy. At one point, I even feared that she might have listened to my inner thoughts, and the endless discussions in my head.
“I’m fine,” I half-smiled. “You should go, my brother and the kids will be home soon.”
“You’re right,” she agreed, slipping out of the thin sheet covering her bare body.
She bent over and picked up the clothes she had chaotically thrown onto the floor the night before, in the rush, then began dressing up again.
“Are we okay?” she asked, stopping herself at the door.
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I’m the reason you and Kate broke up.”
“Apparently, you kissing me was only the tip of the iceberg,” I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m leaving tomorrow, want to come over tonight?”
“Text me when,” she nodded.
I took my head in my hands, trying and failing to shut down the millions of voices in my mind whispering to me that being friends with benefits with Lena wasn’t the best way to go handle a broken heart.