The Upside of Falling Back To You

chapter fifty | (not really) invisible string

THE DAY KEEPS dragging on.

I realise I have issues. Like, major issues. I'm so broken to the point where the only place I can sit is on the ground for some reason. I can't go out - or well, I don't feel like going out. Or leaving my room. All I can do is try to work, but my mind still goes elsewhere.

It's like, whenever I'm typing, I always end up opening a new tab, and then my next instinct is to open Twitter. I haven't been on Twitter for a long while - it felt suffocating before, somehow ending up on the first tweet on my feed because I was always with him. But hey, I haven't left my house in at least a week now, I probably wouldn't be there.

I mean, there was no pictures of me, but there was a picture of Ronan at the airport. It was recent - like, really recent, unless whoever posted it was lying about "just" meeting him at the airport.

My fingers then move to open another tab. I try and check when the flights to LA were.

The next one leaves Toronto in about an hour and a half. The last one was over six hours ago.

I have issues. I know I have issues. I'm still thinking about him when I said I didn't want him in my life. This is what I get, isn't it? I managed to finally get rid of him and now I can't stop thinking of him.

And finally, to interrupt my sad life, my phone rings again. This time, Cas doesn't have to force me to pick it up. I do it anyways.

"Hello?" I answer, my voice slightly hoarse. I forgot to even check who was on the other end.

"Oh my god, Asteria. Oh god, oh god, oh my god."

My eyes grow wide. "Laila? What's wrong? What happened?" There's panic in her voice, as if she was in a rush.

"I- oh my god, Asteria. I can't- shit, I'm not even supposed to be this stressed."

"Laila, please use your words, I'm really not following." I put my laptop on the floor beside me. "Breathe, Laila, tell me what's up."

"Jamie- she... she... she was feeling really off today, you know? You noticed, right?" I did not, in fact, notice. "Well, whatever. She was feeling these contractions or whatever-"

My mouth hangs open as I try to make sense of Laila's words. "She's not due for at least four weeks-"

"I know, I know that, but something's happened." In the background, I could hear her walk around her room, as if she was searching for something. "Jiro took her to the hospital and they've been there for a while now and-"

"You didn't tell me?"

"Honestly, Asteria, you really aren't in the mindset for this right now," she said bluntly. "No offence, but I could hear it in your voice. You're still hurt. You're still thinking of him. It doesn't help that his flight is going to leave soon."

I pursed my lips. I understood that. "Okay, so they're at the hospital and...?"

"Her water broke, Aster," Laila continued. I could hear a zipper. "They were gonna send her back home but she's most definitely going to give birth either later tonight or tomorrow, and she's gonna stay at the hospital. I'm heading to there right now, Jiro's staying with her, but I wanted to let you know if you wanted to come, too, if you're in the mood for it-"

"Yeah, yeah, of course, I mean it's Jamie. I have to be there for her-" I move my phone from one hand to the other and try to grab the frame of my bed to pull me up and-

Ouch- I look up at my wrist, where I think I scratched myself, and I see it.

At this point, the string bracelet Ronan gave me as a joke for Christmas was just a part of me. I didn't take it off, but I barely remembered it was there. It just hung around my wrist as a physical piece of him that I carried everywhere. Did Ronan have his? I couldn't even remember - but if he was moving on from me, I doubt he still kept it.

But looking at it now - it's torn. It's... it's split into two pieces. Something on my bed must've caught on one of the ends and ripped it apart.

And I couldn't stop staring. And thinking. I don't know what it triggered in my mind but I'm left frozen, thinking about him. About us. I think about how... how the bracelet... I started wearing the bracelet at the beginning of all of this. How ironic was it that it broke right now? After all the things I had to carry and the showers I took, it should've faded into threads by now.

But it hasn't. It decides to break now.

"Asteria...?"

Everything came rushing back. Ronan's words. Jiro's words. Jamie and Laila and Parv who all were trying to tell me something that I refused to believe. Who was I kidding - I was lying to myself. I was lying about my feelings and even when I admitted them, I refused to act on them.

And now he was leaving. He was going to hop on a flight to LA and based on his track record, he was never going to come back, was he? And I'm just...

I'm just letting him leave.

And I don't know what's controlling me - my head or my heart, but I'm pretty sure they're both trying to tell me something similar.

"Asteria!"

"I- Jamie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I... tell Jamie I love her, I hope she's okay, and I'm going to come visit her soon, but right now-"

I look back down on my laptop screen. It was still open to the page with all the flights.

"I have to... I have to do something before I regret it for the rest of my life."

☙

a/n yes i do realise this is like the shortest chapter of the book so far.

:)