London

31 - "You sound like a child."

Alex

The week flies by in a slow tempo. With nothing else to do but stay at home, I feel slightly better. It probably has to do with the fact that I don't have to travel and experience the London life. It's refreshing to be able to do what I love the most for the entirety of the day. No one telling me I shouldn't, Harry trying his best to show support and come up with jobs I could apply to, but he must know that for now I am content with sleeping and watching movies all day because he doesn't push the subject. Or maybe he just feels guilty that I lost my job partly because of him. 

Jano had just started to warm up to me, seeing how hard I work even with a broken wrist, but I don't feel the need to try and mend it. It's okay and the job wasn't making me happy anyway. Staying at home does not fulfil me either, but it is better than the constant pressure of anxiety that I felt travelling to work and being there. It made me miserable, I realize now I'm no longer there, but I do feel a bit lost without any direction. I know I'm on the verge of something bigger and I just hope that for once it is something good instead of bad. I need some luck in my life, something that will make me feel happy at least at work so that I can survive the moments I share with Harry who is still miserable as well. 

We sit together at a table in the old pub my father used to go to. While Harry worked all day, I spent the day inside chilling on the couch. You'd think that doing absolutely nothing would give me energy but instead I'm dead tired and Harry is as well. His work isn't giving him the satisfaction that it used to do and I wonder why, but I don't ask. He won't answer me anyway. Just like he probably won't ask why I had a panic attack. Because he knows I won't answer. Which is only because our mother's are of limit. Something he decided the moment reality struck him that his mother is going to die.

"You don't mind being here?" Harry asks referring to the pub.

"No, I have been here since and it is nice. Familiar."

"Okay, then it is okay," he says and his eyes scan the crowd. I don't have to look his way to know who he sees when his shoulders stiffen and his eyes quickly go back to me. It's probably Susie and I had expected her here.

It is already getting busier, everyone gathering for Nina's birthday. She asked me if I knew a nice pub with a laidback feeling to it and since this is the only place I know, it was quite an easy tip to give her. Considering Harry and her used to swim in the same circle of friends, I had expected Susie to be here. At Harry's birthday I even managed to speak to her although it was short and only bearable because I already had a couple sips of alcohol. The thrill of drinking in secret making me feel on top of the world. She thanked me for inviting her and I succeeded in playing it cool as if I had expected her to be there which I hadn't, but she bought it though, I think. Right now there is no alcohol in my system, but I hope tonight is just as successful although I don't feel the need to talk to Susie.

"Did Thomas text you again?" Harry asks out of the blue and I frown as I turn my attention back to him.

"No, why?" Thomas hasn't texted me for a while now. In his last text he asked me for the second time if something was wrong. Maybe he thought that no answer is an answer as well and found a way to let me go.

"I was just wondering," he says, pausing for a moment and taking a sip from his beer. "After you read Susie's messages I thought you would reach out to him."

"You think highly of me," I say. "Why do you think that? Because you would do the same? Is that why you are still in touch with her because you think I am with Thomas?"

"Of course not. I just wonder why you ignore him while you said so yourself that he's important to you."

"Is Susie important to you?"