clumsy | l.h.

twenty-two

"what's it all for? someone help me cause i'm not sure" - What's It All For / Evaride

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-Luke-

Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I sat up in bed and picked up my phone. I opened up my text messages, only slightly disappointed by the lack of new messages from Violet. I sent her a quick message, asking if she wanted to hang out later that day. I watched hopefully as bubbles appeared at the bottom of the screen, staying there for a while. Eventually, they disappeared.

I sighed and slowly made my way to the kitchen, feeling defeated. Since the funeral, and since she had run out of the diner on me a couple of days ago, Violet had been completely MIA. I tried to be understanding, and not feel overly hurt by her ignoring me. It was hard, though. It had finally felt like we were getting somewhere real, and then everything changed again. One step forward and two steps back.

Regardless, I was trying to be patient. As I started to push a couple of pieces of bread down into the toaster, I heard Michael enter the kitchen behind me, "Morning."

I didn't turn around,  keeping my eyes fixed on the toaster, "Hey. How was last night?"

Michael had taken Sydney out again last night, just to grab a drink or two and try to help her get her mind off of things. I knew that he was in a tough spot right now, trying to be there for someone he barely knew in a time when their whole world was falling apart.

He nodded slowly, "It was actually pretty nice. Obviously Sydney's still really upset, but I think last night helped a little. At one point I'm pretty sure I even heard her laugh at Violet's joke."

My head snapped in Michael's direction, "Violet was there with you? Why didn't you say anything?"

Michael's mouth fell open slightly. He quickly recovered, "Forget I said that, apparently I wasn't supposed to. I kind of thought you knew. Although, this explains what Violet and Sydney were whispering about when I came back from the bathroom."

I shook my head, feeling an annoyance bubbling up inside of me despite my better judgement. This was starting to get a little ridiculous. I don't know how long she expected me to just wait around for her to be ready to talk to me again. And this time, I hadn't even done anything wrong.

The toast popped up with a ding, startling me and making me jump. It was followed by another ding, this time from my phone on the counter next to me. Quickly pushing the toast back down for a little longer, I picked it up and saw Violet's name on the screen. Before I even had time to get my hopes up, I read the message: "Sorry, busy."

I groaned loudly, slamming my phone back down on the counter a little harder than I meant to. Michael winced from across the counter, "I'm guessing that may have been her? I'm sorry, dude. Try not to take it too personally. I'm sure it's just because they're going through a hard time, they both are."

"Then let me ask you something, did she seem like she was going through a hard time last night?"

Michael hesitated slightly, clearly struggling to find the right words, "I mean, she didn't necessarily seem devastated... But I don't know, maybe she's really good at hiding it? Look, Luke, I don't want to get involved right now, not in-between you two and this weird complicated shit you're always going through. Especially since I'm really starting to like Sydney and I think she may feel the same. I'm not going to mess that up by driving a wedge into her best friend's relationship."

I sighed and nodded slowly, "You're completely right, I'm sorry for trying to get you involved. I've just gotta find a way to talk to her myself. But it's a little hard to do that when she won't make an effort to see me."