Conversations From Afar

58 / turn up

"That guy is very drawable." Ellis sits next to me on the sectional, an arm behind my back and one leg thrown over the other. He nurses the same beer a drunk boy opened for him when we walked in the door, and he won't stop jiggling his foot.

"Which one?" I turn and my cheek presses to his arm.

"The cute one. Black zippy sweater and reflective track pants." Said boy is leaning against the glass wall with two other boys, surveying the others and laughing discretely with his friends. The ginger keeps looking our way and nudging Black Zippy Sweater.

"See the ginger?" I murmur back, looking back to Ellis.

"Yeah, totally checking you out by the way." Then he squints. "Hey, wait. Isn't that..."

"Katherine!" Then Rory collapses on the other side of the sectional with an awful, glazed look. His words are just slightly slurred. "Didn't expect you to be here!"

"Does he usually talk in exclamation points?" Ellis murmurs into my hair and I giggle before leaning around him.

"Hi Rory, it's Kat. How drunk are you?"

"Er... this drunk." But he doesn't make a measurement for this. "So, you and Cam are over, I guess?"

Ellis tenses before I do. "Um... why?"

"Well, you've got this guy over here all over you." He gestures, and Ellis sighs.

"Ellis," he waves and doesn't offer to shake hands. "We've met, actually."

"Huh... Rory. I dunno Katherine, it just seems stupid to stay with a guy who's probably cheating on you..."

A wave. A wave of anger washes over me and settles into every tissue.

Ellis hasn't said anything, and I'm grateful. I stand up without a word and take his' hand before walking away. He follows closely and doesn't tell me to calm down as I shove the sliding door aside to stalk down the driveway.

I turn onto the pavement and he untangles our hands to drop an arm around my shoulders. I let him pull me to his side and we keep walking down the deserted road with most of its driveways too long to see civilization.

"You don't need me to tell you to ignore that creature." He finally says. It's cold, but the anger is quite warm.

"People keep saying things."

"Saying what?"

"How dare he say that? He doesn't even know me or Cam he's just a pathetic little drunken little..." I make a frustrated little girly noise that makes me more annoyed. "I hate him. I hate him. I hate people. I hate wveyone. Why does everyone tell me long distance doesn't work? Why do I always believe them?"

"You're human, Kat. They're human. We're all human and we all make mistakes."

"I hate you. Stop being reasonable." I'm pouting, but my eyes aren't watering.

"Aw, I love you Katherine." He pulls me closer, and gives me a little walking-side-hug. "Now I'm going to call a cab because it's freaking freezing."

We wait for the taxi outside of a closed yacht maintenance shop, and huddle close on the sidewalk.

"This feels like that scene in the Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry is sitting then he sees the Sirius as an animagus and falls back with his wand-hand out and the Knight Bus speeds up." He says, almost offhand, one arm around my waist the other around his knees.

"Yeah, I suppose." I open Instagram to scroll through my feed, then check Cam's profile even though he posts less often than my mom. Without considering anything, I click in the photos he's been tagged in.

There are three I've never seen before.

Collins Levin posted a picture with him today, three days ago, and last week. They're in the library with his friend Finn, cooking in someone's kitchen with a stupid apron, and today's.

In today's, it's a picture of Cam and Klose. He's on the floor cuddling with Klose, his laptop and notes on either side of him but she had a picture of him cuddling Klose on the floor of his apartment.

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WooooOOOOOOooooooOOOOOoooo