Find Some Peace

According to Sidney, letting go came in baby steps that I was trying to sprint over.

Obviously with our knowledge of each others personal experiences, we started out by just getting our minds off everything. This was first attempted at the movies. After spending the entire following day in a theater watching anything that seemed slightly amusing, we had plenty to talk about, which was something new to me.

Or maybe it was just Sidney.

Either way, conversation just flowed.

“Blaster would be my homeboy, no joke,” Sidney laughed, throwing away what was left of our ravaged popcorn bucket.

“Homeboy? Never say that again, please,” I replied with a smile and straightened out my baby blue SFU hoodie. Patting my jeans, I examined myself to the best of my ability while walking. Considering he forced me out of bed that morning at seven and wouldn’t allow me to put a speck of make up on or even affectively brush my hair, I didn’t look all that hot. To increase my already amazingly high aura of sex appeal, my jeans were wrinkled from being in the same sitting position for like twelve hours. I was surprised my jacket wasn’t screwed too, but hey, I wasn’t going to jinx myself.

We exited the massive, crowded rush of eight-o’clock movie-goers side-by-side. Hands shoved in my pockets, I noticed our steps were synchronized to a tee. I impulsively quickened my pace but shortened my stride length to make us uneven like normal people, but just as quickly as I messed our step up did he mirror me. My cheeks flushed as he chuckled with my realization of what exactly I was doing. Frankly, I felt like a child.

I jumped, hands balled into fists. “Sidney! Warning!” I growled at the boy who was now laughing at me even harder.

“All I did was whistle, jeeze! Shut up and get in the cab, Jumpy,” he replied playfully and yanked me into the cab beside him. The second I saw him start to dig around for his wallet, I hip checked him the best I could and effectively smeared him against the closed cab door so he couldn’t access his money. I then, much to his verbalized dismay, proceeded to hand the driver a fifty and direct him back to my house.

“That wasn’t fair,” the brunette muttered, sending me a faux glare.

“Yeah, well, basically kidnapping me from beauty sleep wasn’t really great either,” I answered quietly, staring out my window. The city streets were unusually bare of people for such a pretty day. I mean, it was foggy as usual, but the outside air felt fresh and clean and the sun seemed brighter that the norm.

A few people idly roamed the San Fran sidewalks, armed with shopping bags. Every now and then we would pass someone with a really high brand-name bag that would make my jaw drop, but that was probably the most amusing thing to be seen from the inside of a cab.

------

Ten o’clock rolled around and I was amazingly wide awake, just staring out my wide open bedroom window… Wall… Thing. Either way, I was watching the city lights erupt into a blazing inferno of night-life. I suddenly even found myself craving a good dance in the rain. It didn’t help that just as the thought occurred to me, it began drizzling outside.

Semi-light footfalls could be heard on the metal staircase to my room, Sidney’s head popping up as expected seconds later. “Hey, mind if I hook my lap top up to your-“

“The office is all yours,” I replied, cutting him off with a small smile. Sure, I didn’t break the concentration I currently had on my lively city, but that didn’t mean I missed his dimpled grin.

My heart wrenched.

Thankfully he didn’t have anything else to say because the moment he was clear of vision, my entire body seemed to frown. Suddenly I was cursing myself all over again.

I forgot about you…

Damn it all, I forgot about you…

I squeezed my eyes shut and fell sideways into my small love seat, burrowing myself further into my two throw pillows like it would help me hide from such a dire feeling of self-dread. No matter how much my emotions and thoughts screamed to just sleep, to just keep trying to get my mind away from everything, the more I came to realize what I was running away from: Him. I was forcing myself to forget about Matthew while that was the last thing I wanted and it was all just so I’d feel a bit better. If that wasn’t being selfish, I didn’t know what was.

Sidney.

My mind began flicking on a few green lights amidst the storm of red.

Think of Sidney and Casey.

The intense death-grip on my throw pillow loosened slightly.

He knows what he’s doing.

But this isn’t right! I can’t forget about him!

Hello? Open your eyes, you idiot!

His voice seemed to overtake mine.

You’re not forgetting him right now, are you?

Yeah. Thought not.

That’s the thing. If you get your mind off him for awhile, you won’t feel like shit and kill yourself with guilt. When are you just going to stop questioning me? You know what? Just sleep and let your body relax. You really need it, Manda. Trust me… You know my story. I’ve been through this. Please… Let me be here for you.

But I’m not you, Sidney. Your methods may have worked for you, but I’m-I-I’m weak-

No you’re not.

Give me one reason.

You’re arguing with me right now. A weakling submits to everything. Oh, and when you body checked me tonight so you could keep me from paying the cab fair? Yeah, that hurt just as much as when Tanger hits me during practice.

Oh.

And you went through with today when you know you could have just kicked me out of your room.

What does that-

Think about it.



“Holy shit,” I murmured to myself in the silence of Wednesday morning. The sun had begun to rise not even an hour ago judging from the dim lighting of my room, which was still open to the outside world. Cars were already stacking up along the streets of San Francisco, people already beginning their days with work. I let out a heavy sigh at the very thought of work and rolled off of the love seat to drag myself for a shower.

I had woken up from a dreamless sleep this morning.

Dreamless.

Not half an hour later I emerged from the bathroom with my hair just damp and down and a light coat of make up on my face. It wasn’t much, just enough to make me look a step up from frumpy, tired, crap. The rest of me simply donned black basketball shorts and a slightly loose-fitted blue Ed Hardy t-shirt with blue slipper socks.

Sidney wouldn’t be awake for… Well, probably until I woke him up. This presented me with a very nice, easy time frame.

After hesitantly creeping through the living room, passed a sleeping bear that had pretty much reconstructed my couch into a bed, I entered the kitchen. It took me practically twenty minutes just to silently arm myself with a good arsenal of cooking supplies for my mission.

Waffles: It’s what’s for breakfast.

“That smells awesome,” Sidney half-moaned, rubbing his eyes and yawning. By now my slight cooking A.D.D. had led me to make sausage, gravy, biscuits, scrambled eggs, waffles and pancakes. Yes, there was a shit ton of food now taking up an equally obnoxious amount of kitchen space. “Are you having people over or something? There has to be enough food here to feed the entire city.”

“I like cooking; sue me,” I replied with a shrug and turned the stove off. With that, I handed him a big white plate and said, “Dig in. Oh, and what do you want to drink? Milk, orange juice, water…?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he answered with a mouth-watered stare at the buffet set ahead of him.

------

Breakfast passed quickly. Sidney pretty much knocked out the entire sausage supply and most of the pancakes while attacked the waffles. With the remaining eggs, I mixed cut up potato pieces and what was left of the sausage for later. Sid cleaned a lot against my will. I simply gave up after he picked me up, carried me out of the kitchen like a rag doll, and dropped me on the couch and even had the nerve to tell me to stay.

I couldn’t be angry at that smile.

Jeeze, what the hell? “Sid”? And since when could I not say no to him?

‘Since last night, when you basically told yourself off in his voice.’

Ugh. Fuck my life. I’m going crazy.

‘No, you’re simply using split sides to make up your god damn crazy mind.’

Either way, I’m still crazy.

‘Be that as it may, you’ve still got him and who knows how long until you can start work again.’

Don’t remind me.

‘…Uh, dude, you’re reminding yourself. Oh, and Sidney’s done now if you haven’t noticed.’

Guhh… Fuck.

“Hey Sidney,” I said calmly, my back to him completely. I hadn’t moved an inch.

“Are you psychic or something?” he replied in all seriousness before launching himself over the back of the couch beside me. Patting his stomach contentedly, he stared up at the ceiling and breathed deep. “Thanks.”

I nodded and mirrored his actions. “Mhm.”

“I need to go check my email and get some things done,” he grumbled, forcing himself out of his comfortable sitting position and sighed. “It’s going to take me awhile.”

“Oh,” I nodded and stood as well, “Alright. I need to clean up a bit upstairs anyway so…”

He chuckled, reading my mind. “I’ll tell you when I’m done!” Sidney called with his back to me, slowly making his way to my –er- his office. “And one more thing,” he added before I could get up the first step of the staircase, “No frowning.”



My room was cleaned in less than ten minutes. Most of my time was spent straightening up my bathroom and refreshing the towels and such. Other than that, I lay quietly in my bed with the radio playing at medium volume in the background searching for something; anything to do. I found myself uncontrollably listening to my surfacing thoughts; memories, to be exact.

“Why do you care if I’m happy or not? And don’t tell me it’s remotely because you feel bad about what happened.”

“Because I know how you feel. To lose the one you love… You’re never going to be the same. Like you, I survived, but barely. I don’t want you to waste your life playing it safe like I did. Goodnight, Manny.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my sheets, welcoming in the memories, the thoughts, the words and actions…

“So don’t tell me I don’t know how you feel. And don’t think for one second you shouldn’t be happy again. You’ll never be the same; you have changed, but don’t let it eat you alive like it did me for so long.”

My eyes seemed to shut on their own accord. Every muscle once tense in my body slowly relaxed. Was it the sound of his voice? Maybe. The fact that he gave a shit? That’s for sure. The thought of someone caring alone satisfied an ache I never knew existed in my body. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking or feeling, but I wanted nothing more than to make him smile for a change.

-----

Sidney had been in that office for a fuckton of time. Friday was already here and I had hardly seen him thanks to all of the stuff he constantly had to do. He sat in there for long hours at a time and made calls and answered emails until I thought my phone and internet fees would hit the roof.

Honestly, I was starting to miss spending ridiculous amounts of time with him…

It was almost six PM when I rolled out of bed and stumbled down stairs. The kitchen was my direct stop, stomach growling obnoxiously. I made two mugs of hot coco with haste and stepped hesitantly toward his current place of residence.

The door was open, so I stepped right inside and shut it softly behind me using my elbow.

“You were a cute kid,” he spoke suddenly at my back.

I spun back around to face him, only to find myself looking down at his sitting form on the floor. Before him was a stack of books -no- photo albums. I instantly found my stomach knotting, but I forced the feeling down the best I could and slapped on a fake smile as I moved to sit beside him.

I’ve known Matthew almost all my life...

“Here,” I whispered, handing him his warm mug and sipping from mine.

“Oh, awesome, thanks!” Sidney grinned and mimicked me while he turned the page of the album. The first picture that caught my eye on the following page was one from my first day of fifth grade. My hair was in pigtails and I was standing with my two best friends in the world. Lily, a skinny little red head and Matt grinned back at me from the old faded page.

I swallowed hard and let my shaking index finger slowly trace over the old photograph.

Before I knew it, I pinched the bottom corner between my thumb and forefinger and the page turned… And another and another until the only thing I could see were his and my aging faces. We were always together.

My arm became unbearably stiff, dropping the turned page limply to see the next chapter of my life story.

High School Graduation- He was kissing my cheek under a huge flower arbor in our school colors. My hair was pinned up and in loose curls, my makeup done just right. A massive lay sat around my shoulders. His arm was around my waist and mine was draped across his broad shoulder line. We were so carefree that summer… Nothing could stop us. We were going to the same college, going to be together… “Forever”.

A sharp breath escaped my lips as I coldly tore my gaze away from the page; away from Sidney. Oh, like that would help. Turning my head wasn’t going to hide the fact that tears were falling down my cheeks to the rhythm of my pulsating heartbeat. The second my stomach lurched, two arms wound around me. I didn’t bother fighting back; he was so much stronger than I would ever be.

What a double-sided truth.

Instead, I found myself wrapping my arms around his neck and burrowing my face in the side of his neck while he pulled me into his lap.

A curious thing took over my entire body.

The tears that were once staining my shirt in rivers were completely dried in seconds. The soft hum of his voice forced my breathing to slow and even out. With every minuscule stroke on my back I became even more entranced and quiet to the point where I was just laying there, engulfed in him, wanting nothing more than to stay that way forever.

Judging by the way he pulled me closer against him after I calmed down, I’d say he’d let me.