(18+) RED (Complete)

Ch. 16: Delusions

I was numb. The few tears that fell while I gathered and put on my clothes, had dried, and all that was left was a storm of empty emotions that I didn't know how to deal with. The only thing I managed to focus on was the missing buttons on my shirt. A shirt that he ruined because Michael wasn't patient enough to open those three. I didn't care at that moment. I didn't care, because I'd never felt so cherished and desired as I was in his arms. Three fucking buttons.

One thing was Michael. As cliché as it was, the stupid "I thought we had something special" lingered in my head like a suffocating cloud. Although I knew we hadn't known each other that long, only a few months actually, hours and hours of texting and talking on the phone made me feel close to him. But not anymore. Gabby had driven a wedge between us. A wedge that was her.

She'd been my best friend since my family and I moved in three doors down from her house. She'd invited me to her fifth birthday party the day after we met, and we were thrilled to find out that we were starting school together. Not only that, but in the same class, too. And ever since then, we'd been attached by the hip like we were each other's shadows. Gabby's dad, who was a doctor, kept telling jokes about us being Siamese twins or that someone accidentally had forgotten to remove the sutures that kept us together. Well guess what, Ray. They're gone now, together with an eighteen year old friendship.

She was drunk. We were all drunk, but was that really an excuse? I knew Gabby was stubborn and could talk a stone into doing her homework, but she knew I had a crush on Michael. Or crush? I was head over heels in love with him, and I hoped that after this weekend we would be more than just friends. Now we were neither.

Then there was him. He could've just said no. At least he could have looked like he didn't enjoy it as much as he did. Maybe it was Gabby he'd wanted all along, and I was just way too starstruck and stupid to realize? Probably. But it didn't change the fact that he chose to fuck her right in front of me, as if he wanted to rub my inexperience and insecurities in my face. If he liked me, he should have wanted me first. He should have made love to me and not given her a thought at all. Instead I now had the image of him and my best friend, naked and moaning, stuck playing on repeat in my head.

"Watch where you're going!" a male voice said as I bumped into his shoulder, and I mumbled an excuse without looking at him. Or rather, without looking at anyone. I stumbled down the street with my eyes glued on the pavement, and tried to comprehend what the hell happened these past few hours. The daylight erased the night with its rays of sun, but the darkness remained stuck in my heart no matter how far up the sun rose. And I didn't even care.

I'd lost my two closest friends.

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I took the bus home to Idaho, because I refused to go back to our hotel room to pick up my stuff, which included my plane ticket and passport. Maybe Gabby would bring it home and deliver it at our door? Or maybe not. I couldn't deal with that right now. And after having two minor panic attacks caused by the thought of being alone in a cab with a stranger for several hours, and a group of people arguing in the street and who probably didn't even notice I was there, I found it best to go for public transport. The fact that it would take me over twenty hours to get there was the least of my worries. I needed time to think anyway.

I didn't hear anything from Gabby. She was probably passed out on Michael's bed. But Michael kept calling and texting me, begging me to come back so we could talk about it. But what's there to talk about? It was better to make sure I could contact my mom so I could ask her to pick me up at the bus station. That's why I turned my phone off to save the battery.

"Are you alright, dear?"

I turned in confusion, and met a pair of concerned greyish-blue eyes with charming wrinkles surrounding them. It was a woman who probably was around seventy or a little more, and she was sitting across the aisle from me with a knitted basket on her lap. Her expression was mild and her lips were naturally smiling, even now when they were slightly squeezed together in worry. She reminded me of my granny.