Euphoria

“So, you’re really leaving then?”

I look up from my white iPhone, the device’s screen ironically displaying the words ’What time do you leave?’ in a message I had just received.

“No, Sarah,” I sigh, crossing my arms and taking a glance toward the front door of our – her – apartment which was accompanied by my last two boxes. “I’ve just packed all those boxes for some fun, a bit of strenuous activity.”

“Alright, alright,” she raises her hands in a sign of defeat, tucking some of her jet-black hair behind her heavily pierced ear and focusing her brown eyes on said boxes. “I just – I’m gonna’ miss you. I didn’t exactly bet on you going through with this...” She waves her hands around, gesturing to the whole apartment, “This whole moving thing.”

I laugh, tugging and my material shorts anxiously, “I know... I didn’t think I’d do it, too...” My voice is but a whisper as I gaze around the home I will soon be hours worth of travel away from; the lilac coloured walls and the shiny hardwood flooring.

I honestly didn’t think I would go through with it; moving back. I had made a new home for myself in the past two and half years, in this tiny apartment barely big enough for myself and the girl I had only just met upon handing in my application for living. New York was no Maryland, and that’s what I loved about it. I didn’t have to keep up an act because every single person on the street knew who my parents were, or what teachers I had, or what boy I was seeing. Baltimore was beautiful, but it was also suffocating.
I suddenly feel a lurch in my stomach at the thought of meeting eyes with a childhood neighbour, hearing them exclaim, “Ashleigh, dear! Where in God’s name have you been all these years?!”

I stare impassively at the girl before me, shifting my weight from foot to foot as a dull silence envelops us.

“But, I mean,” Sarah’s voice lightens, no doubt trying to lift some spirits among our sullen moods. “Your parents... They’re happy to have you back, yeah? And you’re brother, he was pretty excited when you were there last week, right? I bet they’ll be real happy you’re decidin’ to move back home...”

Sarah’s southern drawl has snuck up on her as she tries to side-step around the inner conflict she knows I have. Despite all the piercings and the sleeves of ink the girl has obtained, she’s still sweet as pumpkin pie and will no doubt return to the south and marry a cowboy. I smirk at the thought before answering her.

“Yeah, he was stoked.” I remember Alex stumbling around bar stools, a grin plastered on his face as he shouts some nonsense about brother-sister bonding and breaking into a Spice Girls rave about being family. “But he was also drunk... Maybe sober Lex won’t be so forgiving...” I frown.
Sarah’s face matches my own in an instant and I quickly slap a smile to mine, eager to leave on a happy note.

“I guess this is it then...” I quickly re-unlock my phone and shoot the pads of my thumbs across the screen to form a brief ’Leaving now.’ under the Alexander messages.
Sarah’s chest noticeably puffs up, holding back some intense emotion I can already see in her eyes.

I reach over to pick up the solid cardboard boxes stacked neatly atop each other, both containing the contents of my bedside drawers. Looking back over I see the girl who I could safely call my best friend, arms crossed tightly into her chest and an unpleasant tug on the corner of her lips.

I sigh, heaving my chest and shuffling the boxes in my arms, “Sar, I’m going to miss you so much... You’re gonna’ come and visit, yeah? Have a perve on my brother while you’re at it?” I joke while repressing my gag-reflex, earning a small smile from her.

“Maybe in a couple of weeks,” she rasps, and I’m suddenly afraid she’s going to fall apart on me. I can very rarely handle a sobbing girl, any raw emotion as such making me uncomfortable, so I hike up the boxes on my hip and offer her a parting grin.
“I’ll see you later.”

I walk out the apartment and quickly bounce down the single flight of stairs leading me to the street, where my black Mazda 3 sits awaiting in the warm April air.
Loading the final boxes into the back seats I take a final look at the complex, remembering so clearly the first day I pulled up to the intimidating building.

Pulling my glasses from my hair and onto the bridge of my nose I sigh, reminiscing on the day that I not only entered my new life in New York City, but left my old one in Maryland.