Sell Your Soul

"Come in," Kayla whispered as she pulled away from me to let me pass her. I nodded my head and stepped inside her house. It was always comforting there; it was like your home away from home.

I kicked off my sandals and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my swim shorts and began to play with my lip-ring.

Kayla shook her head, "don't be nervous. It's not like you have never been here before." She knew me too well, all of my habits and expressions.

"Yea, well that's when things were different..." I trailed off. The last time I stood inside her house was the last time I saw her, the day everything between us had ended. That day still haunted my dreams. It wasn't a messy break-up in the least, maybe that's what I had needed though, to really get over her. Everything was too clean and calm.

Kayla turned to look at me and her eyes dulled a little. "Matt," she sighed. I turned my head; I didn't want to hear any of it again. I didn't even understand why I was here and not at one of my friends house. The girls were always so easy to talk to.

"I don't want to talk about it Kayla," I turned and met her eyes. She nodded her head and walked into her living room and sat down on one of her sofas. They were the same ones that we used to occupy far too regularly. In fact everything still looked the same, except all the photo's that she had of us were no longer present. My heart fell, even if I had expected that, it still hurt.

I sat down on the matching chair and began bobbing my right leg, another habit of mine. My peripheral vision was set on Kayla. She was staring at me intently, most likely trying to read me like she was so good at, trying to see why I was here.

She turned her head to the left and looked out her patio glass doors into her backyard. Dakota, her dog was in the backyard running around. 'Kota and I always got along well. She used to snuggle up with us at night.

"Why are you here Matthew?"

"Since when have you ever called me that?"

"Whenever something serious was going on," she replied, slightly narrowing her eyes.

"Look," I began. "I don't know why I'm even here. I just needed to get out of the house and this is where I ended up."

She nodded her head. "By 'getting out of the house' you mean getting away from April, right?" Her tone was too casual.

I turned and looked at her, my knee freezing.

"I talked to Nicole a few months ago," she answered my silent question.

I nodded my head. That didn't surprise me. The girls and Kayla were as close with one another as us guys were. We were always like this huge family, all nine of us.

It was silent. I didn't know what to do or even say. I let out a sigh and was about to stand up to leave when Kayla spoke.

"Do you want to grab something to eat or watch a movie or something?"

I froze in mid motion. My hands were on the edge of the chair arms, my body slightly hovering above the cushion. I studied her eyes and saw the pleading look behind them. My heartbeat suddenly increased as I let myself fall back into the chair and smiled. I felt my head nod and my mouth open, "yea, that'd be great."

She lifted her hazel eyes that were staring at the carpet and met my own matching hazel eyes and smiled.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to have ended up at her place after all.