Please Don't Forgive Me

“Why’d you-?” I cut him off. We were waiting on the never ending line in Starbucks and he had tried to casually bring up the same thing about twenty-seven times.

“Kennedy!” I warned. “Why don’t we just not talk about it, okay?” I smiled. He nodded.

“But what-?”

“Kennedy!” He shut up and looked down at the floor like a sad puppy. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“It’s alright.” He ordered everyone’s drinks and we started to walk back to the bus. “I just have one thing to ask,” he said quickly as I sipped my iced coffee. I rolled my eyes and glanced over at him—my way of telling him to continue. “Does Garrett know?” I laughed and almost choked on my coffee.

“Kennedy, do you honestly think he would have let me leave the bus at all if he knew?” He laughed and turned the corner.

“Good point,” he said as we approached the bus again. “Uh-oh,” he laughed as Garrett came storming off the bus, his messy auburn hair shining in the sun.

“Anika Michelle Albert, where the hell have you been?” he asked loudly. He mumbled a quick thanks as Kennedy handed him his coffee and walked onto the bus with everyone else’s.

“I went for a walk with Kenny. I’ve been stuck on a bus for three weeks. I needed some air—even if it is the filthy, polluted New York kind.” I bit down on my straw and walked onto the bus.

“Why didn’t you wait for me to get back?” he asked.

“Because I was getting stir crazy and I didn’t know when you’d be back.” I put my coffee down and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m fine. We went for a walk, went into a few stores and got coffee. Nothing bad happened, Garrett.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Garrett!” I yelled, “Give me five minutes alone, okay? Five minutes is all I ask.”

“Fifteen,” Kenny chimed in. I closed my eyes to calm down and reopened them slowly.

“Fifteen minutes to myself Garrett!” I closed the bathroom door quickly and locked it.

“Anika what’s wrong? What’s in the bag? Ani?” He asked knocking on the door and jiggling the knob.

“It’s locked. Five minutes, okay?”

“Anika what the fuck is going on?”

“Garrett, just step back and give her the fifteen fucking minutes,” Kennedy advised.

“Five!” I yelled from the bathroom.

--------------------♥--------------------

Five minutes felt like five hours. I knew for a fact that Garrett was sitting in the cramped space right outside of the bathroom. The entire time I just wanted to open the door and latch onto him for support, but I knew this was one thing I had to do alone. This was the one thing that I didn’t need my best friend for.

After five minutes, I felt the piece of plastic drop from my hand and I felt a sob take over my body. I was shaking and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, in spite of how hard I tried to push them back. I looked into the small mirror and saw the disaster that I was.

There was a knock on the door and I knew it was Garrett—my five minutes was up. “What?” I yelled.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding broken. “Just tell me if you’re okay.”

I shook my head back and forth, but I couldn’t force the words out. I took ten minutes to compose myself, pull my light-brown-dark-auburn hair into a ponytail and splash my face with cold water. I threw the test in the garbage and walked out of the bathroom.