Shattered Glass

And I wandered around the city for some time before I found myself staring up at the the Bellagio hotel again. This was the reason I was here. And now I had a job to do for Ms. Snow. Two actually. I had no place to stay. I probably couldn’t afford anything around here. And I’d deal with that later. I could find a shelter somewhere to catch z’s even if it was out in the desert by the side of the road. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But I didn’t go looking for anything. I sat down in front of the fountain and stared at the water thinking. Alex, and vampires and putting together a curriculum. I didn’t know where to start. I needed to go for a run. I needed to change clothes. I could find Ant. I could call him even, but I wanted to do this on my own. I wanted to win Alex back on my own. He was already jealous of Ant. And I didn’t need to make that worse.

So many memories of my past were haunting me. And all I really wanted was Alex. I needed to destress.

I looked up and I swear I saw Alex – all blond and staring at me like he recognized me. He turned and looked behind him and I smirked as I stood up and headed towards him. Alex stood there and then he came at me quickly. Faster than I expected he pushed me into an alley way. Glass shattered where we’d been standing as we went deeper into the alley.

“Why the fuck are you here?” Alex screamed at me.

He was angry and I could only stare at him. I tried to speak but I couldn’t, the words stuck on my tongue and I went ridge as I felt his body against my. Alex looked at me again and spoke in a much calmer tone “What are you doing here Nox?”.

He was mad at me and I was starting to regret coming at all. I dropped my eyes and looked at his shoes. How much more different he was when he was someone else. Was he even Alex Kennedy? I growled at him, “I came here to see if you were alright. You weren’t answering my texts.” He was annoyed at me so I wasn’t going to let my annoyance show too.

“I broke up with you, what the fuck don’t you get about that,” Alex snapped at me.

My eyes shot up to meet his eyes. The rejection stung. I didn’t know when he broke up with me? I didn’t… I thought about all the missed messages? And the one he said was ‘see you around pretty boy’. That was a break up. “Oh!” There was nothing left to say. He didn’t want me so I walked away. I felt the hatred of myself growing.

“So that’s it. You came all this way, for what to say Oh?” Alex shouted.

I stopped before I got to the entrance of the alley way and spoke softly, “I thought you wanted more. That the whole point of you telling me you couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t lie to me anymore was because you had feelings. I was wrong. My bad.” I didn’t wait for a response I didn’t want to hear anymore.

I heard Alex move long before he grabbed my elbow and yanked me back around. There was a soft thunk of metal near the dumpster we had just vacated. It was slightly concerning but I was more concerned about the liberties my fucking ex-boyfriend was taking and I jerked out of his grip. “Get off me.” I moved away from him. He had no right, he didn’t want me and the crushing rejection flooded my system but I yelled at him, “I came all this way to make sure you weren’t dead in some ditch somewhere.” I waved my hands at him, he was standing alive and well in front of me as I continued, “But here the fuck you are alive and well. Moved on. Blonde and who else knows what the fuck. Going by James or Jimmy or whoever the fuck. I had other things to say. But you broke up with me. You don’t care. You fucking run away whenever shit gets hard.”

“You fucking disappeared!” Alex yelled back.

Disappeared? What? I had been texting him and trying to get him to talk for weeks. I disappeared? I tried to decipher what he meant. In all the times we spent together I couldn’t find any single instance where it made sense. He’s the one who disappeared on me.

I even ran through all the lost dreams I’d found, looking for it. I disappeared in those, but I was pretty sure he didn’t mean those times. I didn’t want to dwell, I shook my head trying to get Alex out. I knew he was reading me – he was always reading me. “Get out of my head,” I said quietly. I wasn’t angry – at least not at him. I’d fucked up yet again and he grew tired of it. I should just leave.

“How?” He asked.

“How what?” I was confused still

“How did you remember?” Alex stared at me dumbfound.

“It wasn’t hard once I knew I was missing things.” I sighed. “You’re the reason I can’t remember any of it.”

The surprise in Alex’s voice radiated through my body, “What?”