Write Me Off | Complete

chapter thirty-seven

It's been two weeks.

Two weeks since O'Malley's. Two weeks since Abby broke down in my arms. Two weeks since I told her I wasn't giving up on us. Two weeks since things started to go back to normal—or at least, a new normal. Our new normal.
We're still broken up, which fucking sucks, but it is what it is. I can't change it. I won't pressure her to do something that could potentially hurt her. So, we're here, in a sort of limbo where we find ways to do things that we used to do under the pretense of it being casual, or for school, or as just friends—like FaceTiming.

We've FaceTimed every night for the past two weeks. If anyone asks, which they don't because they know exactly what we're doing, we could say that we're studying, that I'm simply helping her learn the new chapter before the pop quiz. But every night, she pulls out her chem notes and absently reads through a few lines before her eyes flick up to the screen, and she grins as if to say, okay, I think we're safe now.

Then we slide into our old normal—or as close to our old normal as we can without crossing any lines. She tells me about work, and school, and how she's getting nervous about NYU, and the bangs she's contemplating getting, and the weird noise her car's been making, and I just sit there, grinning like a fucking idiot, because she's here. She's right here in front of me, talking about nothing and everything at the same time, and I know it's not nearly what I want, but it's all I'm able to have right now, and that's okay, too.

I tell her about my days, too. About the family picture my mom printed and hung on the gallery wall, about how hard Coach is running us now that we're days away from the semi-final game, about the organic chem TA that I swear has it out for me, about the house fire Micah almost set the other night trying to make popcorn on the stove, and how the Raptors, Knicks, Suns, Spurs, and Celtics have all contacted Coach about setting up meetings to talk about the draft.

Her excited squeal was loud enough for Micah to come running out of his room, wide-eyed and searching. When he spotted my phone propped up next to me as I ate a bowl of cereal at the kitchen island, he sighed and walked back into his room. He tried to seem annoyed by the interruption, but I caught the twitch of his cheek before he turned.

He's wearing the same shadowed smile now as he pushes a beer across the hightop toward me. I take it, sipping the cheap beer while keeping my eye on the door.

I would have never agreed to purposely ride out a snowstorm in a sports bar surrounded by a bunch of drunk idiots, but since James told me that Abby decided to go, I wasn't exactly going to pass up an opportunity to be locked in with her for a few hours.

O'Malley's usually closes whenever a big storm passes since the roads get closed down, but since it's St. Patrick's Day, they decided to stay open and host a snowed-in party.

I wasn't surprised when Luke and Micah decided to go because getting snowed in at a bar is something those assholes live for, but I was a little shocked when James said he was tagging along. I guess Emery convinced Nia to go, who convinced Jenny, who convinced James, and all I needed to hear to get my ass here, was that Abby was also coming.