Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Fourteen

Time flies when you spend it in a blurry haze.

Though, with all the shit piling up as the end of the semester gets near, I don't mind it. Makes everything easier—one blink and suddenly my twelve papers of the week are all done, one breath and my presentations are over with. I don't think much about anything else these days except for school and Tony's wedding. Everything else is just a low hum in the background.

I've been trying to keep my spirits up since Thanksgiving, the way I did last year after I broke up with Jonah, but I don't think I have scrounged up enough energy to really make it this time. I can still feel my heart clench sometimes, when I'm walking on the sidewalk and see something trivial that reminds me of him, or when I'm at a grocery store and the speakers play a song we used to listen to together. It's fucking stupid, the way my mood turns a complete one-eighty multiple times in the day, that lately, on most days I don't even try to feel happy at all.

I know my friends' concerns have only grown. If they thought it was sad and pathetic how I spent my days before my birthday last month like a zombie, then I don't know what they're thinking of me now. I often decline their invitations to go out, or I just sit there passively on the couch while everyone else pays attention to whatever they put on Netflix.

On rare days such as today, I come along for a late lunch or dinner with the group of weirdos I call my friends. We all just finished our last day of classes before winter break and Sarah decided that we all should go out to celebrate it with a movie and a dinner before we all go home for the holidays.

A couple of weeks ago, I checked on my phone to see one missed call from Jonah. There was no text message to follow up the call I failed to pick up, and I'm too butthurt over everything Jonah did (or more correctly, didn't do) to me to attempt to call back, so I just let it be. There were no more missed calls or any more news from him, and I've since stopped expecting anything.

Except for that one day... his birthday, a couple weeks ago. The petty side of me won over and decided that I should not send him a happy birthday wish in exchange for his shitty one, so I didn't. Still, it left me with a pang of regret to not have talked to him on his birthday.

Not that he was going to reply to my text messages, anyway.

"Yeah, yeah. Hannah and I already made a plan for it like last month. Didn't we, Hannah?"

"What?" I look up at the mention of my name as I slam the car door shut, seeing Freddie grin at me over his shoulder in front of me. "What?"

Keith rolls his eyes as he gets into the driver's seat. "I don't see how it's an elopement if you're planning it out so thoroughly like this."

Freddie grins wider when I cast a look at him. "We were just talking about our Spring Break wedding."

He tries so hard, so hard to amuse me and make me laugh with his stupid jokes. I do appreciate it, but sometimes I think he tries too hard. I humor him with a smile anyway, although I know he'll just look past it to see that I don't really mean it.

"Your unhealthy obsession with me needs to stop," I reply dryly. Freddie only shrugs from the passenger's seat. "Seriously, before I file a restraining order."

"You know I can just get my dad to pay it off, but okay," he replies. "So, about the wedding—"

"We all know nobody in our circle is allowed to get married before Tammy and her boyfriend of six years, Freddie. Give it up."

"Oh, yes, be glad she's not around to hear you talk about eloping, she'll throw a fit," Sarah agrees. "As a matter of fact, I have a suspicion that the reason she's returned home early is because she is planning to elope with Henry."