We All Roll Along

I walked back to the apartment, a slightly pinkish shade tinged onto my cheeks from my encounter with the boy. I knew I shouldn't feel this way, on account of Nick being my boyfriend. But something about the butterflies in my stomach, the lump in my throat, and the twirls in my stomach told me although it was wrong, it was okay. Nick never gave me this feeling. Not once. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration as I slid the key into the door of my apartment. Once more, I was alone, due to the fact that Sammy was out with some other boy she had met. She was a lot more...easy, you could say, than I remembered her to be. I knew I sounded like a hypocrite for being friends with the girl, but calling her easy at the same time. I still loved her, no matter what. She was my best friend. She had offered to share her apartment with me. Besides, it wasn't like I was freeloading. I was splitting the rent with her.

I set my keys on the counter top and walked into the loft section of the apartment, the French window taking up the entire wall. This window gave an extremely breathtaking view of Tempe, one that I found troubling to take my eyes off of. Once I had a good look at the view, I turned and viewed the room laid out in front of me. It was almost a blessing that Sammy and I had the same interests, art and music, because we could bond even more over doing both with each other. The room was split down the middle with an imaginary wall, each side dedicated to either art or music. On the left-hand side of the room, we had instruments and a studio microphone set up, music books, lyrics, and other miscellaneous bits and bobs scattered in drawers. The right-hand side was dedicated to our second love, art. We had canvases and sketchbooks stacked and scattered, and big drawers contained everything from pencils to charcoal to paints to brushes. This one room was like heaven to me, one of the only places I could go to to really get away from everything, and just do what I love.

I sat down cross-legged on the hardwood floor. I decided that the drawers needed to be sorted out, so we could find everything easier. I put all of the picks, drumsticks, and extra strings for the instruments into one drawer, and started to gather up song lyrics. We had scrawled a bunch of songs we enjoyed down on loose leaf pieces of paper, and I smiled, remembering how just a few days ago, Sammy had struggled to write down the lyrics to her favorite song in the perfect font she wanted, which just so happened to be calligraphy. Finally, she gave up, just writing it down in her usual cursive handwriting. When I came to a certain song, I tossed it to the side as I continued plowing through both sides of the room, picking out some songs I wanted to play later, and putting the rest into their drawers. All off the art supplies were pretty organized, but I neatened them up a little bit.

Once the room was neatened up, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and debated on whether or not I should call Nick back. I sighed, and pressed his numbers onto the screen. Three rings later, he picked up. He sounded slightly more sober now, thankfully.

"Hey, babe," he said to me.

"Hi," I said, my lips pursed.

"Look," he said, "I have to tell you something."

"Yeah?"

"I know you're not expecting this, but..."

I took in a deep breath, almost relieved that he was going to say that we should break up.

"I miss you. I'm gonna come see you."

My heart sunk. I realized now that I didn't want this relationship anymore. I was tired of all the stupid fights, the slaps, the alcoholism, everything. I didn't need him in my life anymore. Despite the fact, I gave a fake laugh and took a deep breath. "Oh, you got me, baby. I thought you were gonna break up with me or something."

"Ha, I bet I did," he laughed. "See you in a few days then, baby. Can't wait to have some fun when I get there. Bye."

Before I could say another word, he hung up. I put my phone down on top of the white piano and sighed.

I was fucked.