An Unwritten Chapter

Back and Forth

Mia found it hard to focus with the rapid breathing, she had to hold herself together and answer the call, it felt like the right thing to do. So she did, she swiped right and held the phone pressed hard to her right ear. Silence, they could hear each other breathing. Joe was the first to break the silence, Mia had it coming when she answered the phone. She knew what will happen if she hears his voice, and it started. She started shivering and spiralling like she shot up a mixture of all the drugs that's there in the catalogue. After multiple attempts to hear Mia say hello from the other end of the line, Joe understood that she was freaking out. 'Hey you good? If you don't want to talk I can hang up' he knew how to get her to talk, but this time his attempt failed, as she responded him with a text for his question.

'No no don't hang up, I can't talk but I wanna listen to you' was what she said. But this wasn't the exact text she had sent him, it had many typos her struggle to make out words was real.

Joe laughed out loud trying to make out the words from the text she had sent, though Mia laughed she kept it quiet. Her end was still quiet, talking to him was on problem her mom hearing it was another drama. Her mom always hated Joe, she could not figure out why it was. Maybe she predicted her baby girl would get hurt by the guy. A simple maternal instinct. But that's not the matter at hand now, now Mia had to focus on Joe's voice and respond to him. Even worse, she had to tolerate his teasing tone when he read her replies out loud. He asked her what she wanted to talk about, this made her feel stupid for even answering his call. She had clearly asked him to meet her, but he neglected her text or misread it and now asking her what she wants to talk about, usually things like this would make Mia furious, but when dealing with Joe she would turn into a different person. The one her friends always failed to understand. The soft corner of hers which had a lot of patience that came out of love. She texted him again mentioning that she does not want to do it over the phone, no matter how curious he is because she was done doing things over texts and through others. It was time for her to get real and deal with people upfront instead of hiding behind a protective curtain.

'Fine fine don't get started again, we'll meet. You free tomorrow? We can meet by the lake near the park, and if you like I can take you out for coffee.' Mia loved the idea, but she didn't want to show him how excited she was about it. Maybe that's why no one understood her fully, she never expressed exactly how she felt to anyone. There were only a handful of people who knew the unfiltered version of her, Joe was once in that group, but he is not anymore. A lot had changed and the decision he made forced Mia to pull away from him.

She agreed to meet him at the place he suggested, she was so excited that she was still shaking. If she had been alone, she would have screamed at the top of her lungs by now. But she had to hold in her excitement and run to her best friend's chat to give her the update.

Having heard the news, Rache was a little worried. Some might say it sounds a little toxic, but Rache is the type of friend one can depend on to be there when they need a shoulder to cry on. Though Rache doesn't exactly know what went down between Joe and Mia and whoever intervened between them, she knew the struggle Mia went through trying to cope during the time she spent without talking to him and looking for answers. But she didn't want to burst Mia's bubble, 'you are just going to have a chat with him, right?'

Mia did say yes, but the chat she was planning to have with him was not just a casual chat, she wanted to have the conversation, the one she had been wanting to for a long time and once she did there was no going back. She will have to stick to what she wanted and decided, which was hard given the spiralling mind of Mia's. But now she had stable ground to look after her, she felt a little confident to go forward with her decision.

Even Rache knew that Mia was lying, she knew that Mia would completely let her guard down if she started talking to Joe. But she did what she could, warning Mia not to do anything stupid and end up hurting herself. Mia agreed to everything Rache said, 'Yes yes I'll be careful she agreed.' But deep down she herself realised that this time it was not going to be easy, but she was ready to fight for what she loved. She deserved a happy ending too, she always told herself, everyone who made it miserable for her was happy having the time of her life. But she was still suffering and she wanted to put an end to this unfairness.

The rest of the evening seemed irrelevant to Mia, she couldn't wait for tomorrow, she had already picked up her outfit and made up every possible scenario on how she would meet him and what would be the first thing she would tell him. After many days, even months Mia felt sleepy without even tiring herself to sleep. Her mind was at peace, after a long time. She fell asleep even before she realised she was tired.

The next day was bright and beautiful, the weather was gloomy just the way Mia liked. She started her day early, and after days she went on her morning run. It was evident all the people at the park next to her house had missed her, even the dogs. Mia's haters should see her now, she was alive again, this version of hers got lost when people around her decided to betray and break her, but now she is getting back to her old self. After a refreshing time in the park she got back home to freshen up and get ready, she knew it was a little too early. But she just couldn't wait to meet him.

A time before it all...........................

Mia was enjoying her butter caramel popcorn and a cup of hot cappuccino while listening to her favorite music while watching a pair of birds make a nest on the tree out her window. These past couple of days she has been following this same routine to shut off the noise around her. The truths she had heard and the torment she had to face because of everything that was unveiled was too much for her. This was something she never prepared herself for, and she had no idea what to do about it either. All along she had thought of many things as the reason for the heartbreak and had made peace with it, but now her state had become beyond her imagination. She tried to carry on like nothing happened, but it didn't work, her pain and love were too real too heavy for her to keep it buried within her.

The thoughts replayed again and again in her head, and it started pounding. That was when it happened, that was when he decided to text her again after a whole week without talking to her. 'Hey, how did your exams go?' The text read, seeing his text made her face red. It wasn't him she was really angry at, but it was him she decided to take it out on. All the anger and disappointment of trusting the wrong people and losing the person she loved made her face red, a vein was popping out of her forehead when she took the phone in her hands to text him back. 'Why the hell are you texting me now?' 'I told you I don't want to talk to you again.' 'I've been at peace ever since we stopped talking' she shot out those poisonous sentences one after the other without even hesitating. She was obviously lying about being at peace and not wanting to talk to him, but the anger made her a different person. A person she hated right after she realized what she had done when she got his reply. 'Hey, I just wanted to know how your exams went that's all, sorry that I disturbed you. I thought we were still friends.' 'But if this is what you want then so be it', said the last message and the reality hit Mia harder than before. The damage has been done, and she has lost him forever. She never wanted him out of her life, she wanted him to be a part of her life so bad that she kept screwing things over and making things worse over and over again.

She got subsumed with all the anger she deleted the chat, deleted his number and threw the phone that it hit the edge of her bed and fell on the floor. She stared at her phone for two good minutes without even blinking her eyes, she saw the sim tray edge had popped out, but she was. In no mood to give a shit about it. She couldn't shout or cry out loud, if she did her mom would hear her, and that would bring a whole different drama, in an attempt to control her anger, she fisted her hands and continued to tighten the grip that her knuckles turned white.