Early On

I rounded the corner and saw her sitting there, and then noticed she had already arranged the chairs across the table from each other, the appropriate distance. She smiled big when she saw me, "Oh my gosh HI CARS." I slowed my walk and approached one chair I assume she had set aside. "Hello!! Wow Hi. Oh man this is wild haha," I said gently. She gave me her warmest smile, "I wanna hug you but I feel like we shouldn't."

"Yeah. No it's okay. We can just play it safe," I said while taking my seat. She grabbed her wine glass by the stem and spun it around before taking a small sip. We sat there a bit and looked at the sky above us, around the courtyard and then back at each other. I heard the usual clapping and banging of pots and pans in the distance and said "They do this everyday, have you noticed?" I took a longer sip of my wine and tuned my ears into the noise. "Yeah I keep opening my window to listen when it's time, but I don't know where or how close they are to us. I like hearing it though. Reminds me that human life still exists outside this courtyard." We both quietly listened and felt what we were hearing. Breaking the silence I asked her "Are you and Thomas still basically staying with each other?" She crinkled her nose slightly, looked to her right and said "Yeah, its, well I don't know how it is." She kept her gaze locked to her right, staring at where the wicker fencing met with the stone ground of the courtyard. "We like went from being a pretty independent couple to spending every night with each other. And I don't wanna be alone so he stays with me most nights, but then he runs out of clothes, so then when he goes back to his place, I'm alone again. And he stays away for a few days because he doesn't want to pack up his stuff and walk all the way back to my place. And I hate being alone right now but then also spending all this time together isn't like amazing." I piqued my interest "What do you mean?"

She was chewing on her sweatshirt sleeve now. "I don't know, I just...okay like obviously things weren't perfect lately, and, we sort of had this conversation recently where we both realize there's problems in our relationship. Like, neither of us thinks the other is the person we're gonna marry." "Oh. Like ...recently?" I asked her not wanting to pry but also not wanting to make her feel like she needed to fill a silence. "Yeah, but what do we do right now? If we break up we'll both be more alone than we are right now, and for who knows how long," she said and she started to tear up and I could tell she was choking back a cry. "I'm so sorry Abby." I tried to send her as much love in my voice as much as I could. Because I couldn't do anything else. "It's okay," she wiped her cheek and took out her hair tie, shaking her hair out with her hands. I wanted to cross that barrier of the damn wire table and hug her, but I couldn't. It wasn't safe to hug my friend. It wasn't safe to comfort her the way I normally would. We both had to fight that very normal instinct. "Well I'm just downstairs if you ever want to talk or sit outside like this." She smiled and nodded. I nodded. We both took a swig of our drinks and let out sighs.

"God I hope this doesn't last as long as they're saying it will," she said. I was looking at a sky-rise building behind her with window lights that were very intentionally lit up in the formation of a heart. "Me too." I said now the one holding back my tears, "Me too."