The Middle - Volume Three ✔️

Chapter 72

Jamie

"We're landing soon, doll."

I am so fucking groggy. I open my eyes at the sound of the harsh Glaswegian accent. The woman sitting next to me is smiling at me, though. Her accent makes her sound so angry, if it weren't for her kind face I would probably be a bit scared of her. She's cool though. I'm glad she's woken me up.

"What time is it?" I ask her, rubbing my eyes. My voice is a little rough. I've slept practically the entire flight.

"It's almost 1 in the morning, your time. This is gonna be a long day." She smiles at me again.

Christ, this jet lag is gonna suck. I'm suddenly wishing I hadn't slept during the entire flight. It's 1 o clock in the morning and I just know I'm gonna be wide awake by the time I get home. If I was still in Scotland, it would almost be 6am. I want coffee so bad right now.

"I would have tried to wake you earlier but you were out for the count." The woman next to me says as I can feel the plane making its descent towards the ground.

"Thanks." I tell her as I grip my armrests. Landing is my least favourite part about flying. Almost there though.

As we approach American soil, I try to ignore the weird feeling I have in the pit of my stomach and focus on the positives. I had an awesome time in Scotland; it was great to finally see the sights and to catch up with Helen, Lori, Robert and Steve after so many years. It was an awesome trip for sure, but I do miss Benji. I'm looking forward to Benji jumping all over me as soon as I get back into the house. And I'm looking forward to American food, and American accents, and American TV. There are so many positives about the fact that I am almost back in North Bridge. What else? I get to see Aubrey and Kim soon, not to mention John and Zach. I'm on better than expected terms with Noah, I'm even excited to see him and hear what he's been up to these past few days, and I know he'll wanna hear about my trip too. I'm excited to pick up a guitar again, because I haven't played in a while and I really am missing it now. Particularly after seeing Lewis Capaldi play last Friday. And of course, I'm excited about seeing my best friends: Jay, Joel...

And that's where my excitement ends, and turns into apprehension. Patrick.

How do I feel about seeing Patrick? Nervous, anxious, probably a little nauseous. Yeah, that about sums it up.

I wanted to go to Scotland to give myself space from all of this shit with him, and it has worked a little. I mean, I have literally been thousands of miles away from him over the past five days or so. But other than the distance between us, my plan hasn't worked at all. If anything, feeling so far away from him only made me miss him. Which fucking sucks. I don't wanna miss him the way I do. Not in this new, painful, longing kind of way. I have never felt this before, besides when I think of mom sometimes. I hate it. And I know that seeing Patrick again isn't gonna make this feeling go away, it's only gonna make it worse.

When he sent that message into our group chat telling me to have a good trip, I almost fucking cried. I mean, I didn't even have the decency to tell him that I was going to Scotland. But he had the decency to act so normal about it. I wonder how he reacted when Jay or Joel told him. I bet he was able to hide his surprise and act like he didn't care. I hope he did care. He's liked my Instagram posts, though. Which is something. I think he probably wants to assure me that he's gonna be nice now and put in the effort to move forward as friends and put everything that's happened between us since the start of the year behind us. But, I just don't wanna do that. I know I have to though. I'm gonna try. I plan to apologise to him for the way I left things with him before leaving the country last week (the boat house in the park, the rain, our argument...) then agree to move forward as his friend. It's gonna be fucking difficult, especially if Amanda starts coming around to watch us perform and rehearse. But I've made my bed, I guess. I need to sleep in it.