Fragments of Us

Her shirt is plain and her jeans are too tight. Her hair is probably really messy. She places a shaking finger on the doorbell. This was it. She was just here to talk, nothing else,She repeats to herself in her head. She can hear his footsteps coming closer. Will he take her back? The door opens slowly. He's there standing right in front of her. She can tell he's been waiting for her. But she doesn't understand because he was the one who broke up with her. Did he still like her? "Oh hello, Ruby," He says slowly. "Hi," She stares at her black boots. She can't look into his eyes. She doesn't want to. It's too hard. "Why don't you come in?" His house is colder than before. She wants to go back home and stay inside all day. "Sure," She says shyly. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Corey, why are we doing this? Is this why you called?" She asks him as we sit in a booth in a small diner across town. The plate of food is untouched. The cups of water are nearly full. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat He clears his throat as he nods, "Uh-huh." "I don't think I can answer you so soon." She tries to say biting her chapped lip. What was she doing doesn't she want him back? "Okay, take your time," He tells me. Why did he break up with me in the first place then? I thought he didn't like her anymore. He replaced her and now he tells her he wants her back? This doesn't make sense. Her head hurts. She can't think. There's too much too think about. "I'm sorry, Corey but I have to go," She tells him as She leaves a ten-dollar bill on the table. Girls aren't supposed to do that but she was never like anyone else. She slides out of her seat and out the door. There is nothing she can do about this.

She goes to bed hoping to catch some sleep but she can only thinking of the sound of his voice. She new she shouldn't have gone over to his house or out with him. She was now in deep. Her thoughts were filled with him again. This time it was worse, a lot worse. He had asked her if she wanted to get back together. It happened too fast. She knew she couldn't answer right away. She had missed him but did she really miss him that badly? She fought over this in her head through the night. The last thing that was on her mind was sleep.

She texts him the next morning. She says that she's really sorry for ditching him. The things he left her to think about helped her not to get any sleep that night. She is at work now and on her fourth cup of coffee. Her hands are shaking but she still has to do the work. It's hard. Everything she does now is getting harder. Her phone vibrates in my pocket. She checks it. It's Corey.

Do you want to see the game tonight?

That's the only thing it says. He's probably waiting for her to reply. She wonders if she should respond. It was the right thing to do. Did she really want to watch him play? She had to make a choice.

Sure

She hit send before she could do anything about it. She knew she had to go and find the old jersey in the back of her closest that he gave her, long before this had happened. She was lucky she had kept it.

That's great. I'll text you the details later

Great. Now she had to go. She didn't really want to see but there was nothing else she had to do tonight. Her friends had moved or had gotten married. They never thought of her anymore. She never had anything else to do except with Corey months before. She didn't really have a social life. It was just work, sleep and eat, repeat. Her life wasn't that fun anymore. When she was younger she thought living on her own in a big city would be fun, she would be the life of the party. She had thought so wrong. She had been so young and naive and now she had nothing except for her misery and an empty apartment.

Hours later day, Ruby was found in her closet looking for the bright red jersey. Ruby wasn't the type of girl who organized her closet. Everything was a hanger, in a box or on a shelf but it was not organized. It had been at least thirty or more minutes by now but she had not found the shirt. After a couple more minutes of tossing and flipping through clothes she had found it along with the box of everything that he had given her, from letters to tickets and everything else in between. It give her that sad sick feeling of regret. She had kept everything. She knew she shouldn't have. She felt like a hoarder. She looked at the time. She realized that she had only a couple of minutes left. Dashing across her apartment, she threw on the jersey and a pair of leggings. She had put her makeup on as fast as she could. With only had 3 minutes to spare, she had put on her boots and ran down the stairs and tried to catch a taxi. She was going to be late. Late was one of the things she hated to be. Everyday, she would try to never be late but sometimes it was just so impossible.