COMPLETED. A university student. A professional hockey player. They've proved they can be friends. Can they be more?
Although they're both in their early twenties and living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, their lives couldn't be more different. Cami...
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I had always thought that things were supposed to get better with time. That's what I had been taught, what I had been told. That if you were going through something rough, just stick with it, because it could only get easier. That day by day things would get better.
What a load of bullshit.
At least it was to me.
The little peppermint tea that remained in my once steaming paper cup was now cold. Yet, I couldn't leave the small Starbucks located on the corner of one of downtown Toronto's busiest streets. Although, the way it was looking right now, you'd probably think I was lying by calling it busy because in that moment, the usually-bustling coffee shop was anything but.
The only other living, breathing thing sitting in the customer area other than myself was an older man with glasses who was reading the Toronto Star. I called him Ralph. I had no idea if that was his name—we didn't say a word to each other—but if it wasn't, it should be. He just looked like the type of guy who should be called Ralph.
Only two baristas were behind the counter. I looked over. No, make that one. The other had probably escaped to the break room.
I didn't blame her.
You could literally feel how violent the wind was based on how it shook the windows. If you could even call those glass panes windows, because you couldn't see anything outside of them. Not their fault, though. It was pitch black outside and you could only see the sheets of rain pouring down from the sky if the lightning struck just so.
And some say that pathetic fallacy only exists in fiction.
I had been in Toronto for slightly over two months and I was officially doing the worst I ever have since the move.
And I didn't feel that way just because I was stuck sitting by myself in a practically deserted Starbucks in the middle of a thunderstorm. I was a twenty-minute walk to my apartment, but call me average, I was the type of person who actually needed to see where she was walking to get to her destination safely.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, saw the same message I had left unread twenty minutes ago, and put it back.
Mom: Hi sweetie, I hope you're having a fun Friday night!
I didn't answer her. If that sounds harsh or uncharacteristic of me, let me explain. When I moved here, I made a deal to myself that I couldn't tell my parents when I was doing bad. I had to deal with things on my own, because that's what I signed up for, and it would do absolutely no good to worry them with my deteriorating-by-the-minute mental health.
Things hadn't always been this bad, though.
When I first arrived so nervous I could barely stand at the end of August, it was like I was in a bubble. Everything was new. The campus, the program, the streets, the apartment Angela, Lawson, and I were renting. I was so preoccupied with trying to get acclimated with everything that I almost didn't have the energy to miss home.
