“I-I don't know. Could you let me think about it for a day or two?" I whisper, avoiding her eyes now.

I could the silence that followed shortly after my damnining response but there was nothing I could to stop it. I needed time to think. Wasn't I at least granted that small privilege?

What if I made the wrong decision?

I didn’t want to just think it over a few brief fleeting seconds turned to minutes and then still make a decision I'd regret well into my ailing years.

But still, I was merely going on my emotions now instead of my head where one couldn't tell the difference between honesty and cruelty , had my once abrupt response cut too deep?

"Okay. I'll wait." Her tone of voice sounded resigned but also accepting what she couldn't change. It was out of her hands now and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. I let out a sigh that was more of relief than any other emotion of significance swirling around inside my heart. I hadn't expected her to give in that easily to my terms in the possibility of letting her back I to into my life.

Honestly, I had expected worse. Although she was much more precious to me than that of Riley, Eberlyn wasn't above giving silent treatment.

"Thank you."

She shrugs, a half heartedly voluntary response, "Its the least I could do." She reached over and squeezed my hand. A light smile grace my lips and I bid her a goodbye before making my way down the not so dark hallway anymore. I held my head high, brown plush carpet underfoot, approaching footsteps light as the tumbling snow on the tender touch of a fingertip.

I exit out of the house, passing by the other end of the other hallway that we'd all converted into our hide spots in games of hide and seek into over the years, pause and stare at the empty hallway. Young child giggles filled the dark looming space in my head, a delighted merry sound to fill my memories for years to come, and allowed the deep ache if sadness fill me to the brim settle in my bones of youth. . I close my eyes and let myself float atop the barrage.

Although I know for naught what the dear unknown future held for us, I knew the good were always going to outweigh the bad and I would always be her best friend. In life and in death.

I just hope she knows that.

I let the memories, the times of both happiness and pain settle into their new cocoon cradle of a semblance relating to a home, warm and quiet place to stay, and glide down the hallway to the door. The wooden panel smoothens the rough of my hand, coldness sinking in and making the soft skin its burial ground.

Cold fingers across the red brown, lingering touch, as if wanting to keep dancing to the music of a now-burned-out fire, with the overarching feeling of a longing lover, dipping into the shallow valleys made in the sturdy surface, and hold onto it for a brief moment before falling away.

Memory through memory will I remember you. But I’ll also mourn for what was once mine.

I turn away and swallow the wet lump in my throat. My fingers tear the door away, midday sunlight bathing me in its otherworld orange red glow, and step out. Fingers pulls the door shut, doorknob encompassed by the grasp of my hand . Taking my eyes away from the spot it seems to be locked onto , I trot downstairs onto the dirt spotted floor.

Walking out into the stiff air, I look down the neighbourhood. There were no signs if any cars but some people walking about under the sun. Houses of differing colours and shades lined up in a straight line on both sides of the pathway. Window curtains blocked seeing into houses on opposite sides.

I bit my lip and shook my wrist, anxious.

I didn't want her to drive all the way out here from where she was located but I also did t want to stay here any longer than I has to. But then again, she did say I could call here anytime.....

I look at my phone as if it holds all the answers to my questions, trying to make a decision. Should I call her? Should I not call her? I don't even know what to do anymore. Panic rises up in my chest, blocking the ease of airway in my lungs. My eyes water as I struggle to breathe, although the rising fear and overwhelming sense of doom triggered horrible feelings that I found it hard to control.

I breathe in and out, counting the seconds in between each muscle exertion. Each shaky inhale and exhale, the pumping thud of my heart against my chest calmed down like a tired child to sweet lullaby, burrow into my tired lungs. Shaky hands went up to wipe fallen tears. Building blur out of periphery vision n front of me.

‘Focus on your breathing and list 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear and 2 you can smell. It’ll help.’ Fern suggest, trying to get through to me in my panicked state.

“Okay.”

I look around the neighbourhood.

The first thing I get to notice is the setting sun painting the horizon reddish-orange, the arms of the sky holding it still in its darkening cradle of comfort. Although I can’t touch the sun physically, I’d like to imagine my raised up hands can fell the heat of the orange ball in high sky. The second is the slow moving of the graying clouds moving across the vast range of the sky. Third is the rushing free air on my brown skin, brushing past my black tresses, blowing in my face with the strong wave of an electric fan close up. I lean my face my face into it, relishing in the feel of the wind my skin. Third is the fence protecting each house down the lane.

Fourth is the swaying of the leaves on the green trees. The fluttering of tress drowns out the secret ruffling of the brown thin and thick branches. I get mesmerized, following the movement of the swaying leaves on their sticks that mold them to the thick bark of the tall tree. Fifth is the cars spread out far and wide on the streets idea, occupying empty spaces in between distances per car, silent engines that give no sign of starting. I let out a slow breath of air, heartbeat beginning to steady its unsteady music against the concave bones of my ribcage.

After going through the other four things you can see, hear and taste, my hard breathing stills and changes back to the rhythm of calm and steady, I can finally breathe and think clearly without the threat of a panic attack stopping me. My finger presses into the medium sized switch below the other long strip for volume. The thin strap asses my command and obeys without much prompting, turning on the long since darkened screen of my phone. Lock screen greets me first before I swipe up to input my password. Home screen blinks at me in subsequent second succession.

My eyes look for contacts and lurch onto it with a sudden stop as they come upon it. The orange coloured background kind of gives it walkway I’m guessing. I tap the app. I scroll a little bit down. Unsure fingers hovering above the call button, I consider cutting the call right after she picks up. I shake my head, banishing he very thought if doubt that to my sister. If she would never do that rude act to me, why should I to her? I press down and wait as it rings for her to pick up my call.

It rings and rings, caller ID displayed on the interface of the screen. I bite my lip and start to tap my feet to the catchy tune, the slow unconscious action of feet hitting paved sidewalk in continuous secession, pauses in between. My lips start to mouth the words to Ava Max’s So Am I, a popular uprising American female singer.

It's taking too long. She has to pick up sometime. I don’t know for how long I’m willing to let it go on ringing like this.

The sing ends and soon the time of the ongoing call changes as if my wish has been granted that she picks up my call. Thank goodness, I was starting to chicken out.

“Hi.” I answer immediately she picks up the phone. “Could you come pick me up?” My words are empty even to my heightened sense of hearing so I’m imagining that no one can hear the void that sheaths the hunkered sheet of its silhouette over the silenced cry.

“Things didn’t go well, did they? I’m on my way.”

She cut the call soon afterwards, leaving me to the cold forked claws of the wind, conflicting thoughts feeling sorrow about the 9 years of friendship I’d been forced to abandon, and happy, encaustic that I go to at least keep one of my best friends, even if it was still unsecured that I would-or could- trust her again enough to keep her by and with me for the rest of my life. Without Riley, who now refused to apologize to me fir her selfish act, I knew not if I could continue to fiction ac I normally could. I love them both dearly and I couldn’t be whole without them both. It just wasn’t possible, as hopeful as my heart might be. Darkness swamped my mind, weighing down my already breaking and shattered spirit. It’s as if a particular set of words set me off and now the hurt if losing Riley hurts more than ever.

Tears prickle and trickle, streams of salt water gathering along the rims of my eyes, blinding my glossy vision. They streak down my cheeks, resembling that of an uncontrolled and uncontainable waterfall down the gauge rocky edges. I bury my head in my hands as I grieve, wails of a heart stung pain rattles off in different directions in my body, every nerve, every cell and every burns, pain ricocheting off the hollow bones of body. I slump down onto the floor and scream into my hand with a wail mixed I to it; a gourmet stylishly made dish of salt and pepper, the sound echoing in the line walls of world surrounding me.

As the sun dipped far below into the horizon, something weird and horrifying happens. The trees all of a sudden look like something out of a horror movie, branches sticking out towards me in a dark gust of wind rattling dead bones, threatening to kill me with their long jagged spikes in threes straight to the heart and stealing my life force in one full swoop of a second. I bite my lip, whimper after whimper leaving my lips, fear roiling up inside my gut and threatening to spill out an accident torrent of vomit. I dry heave and close my eyes again, buy the image stays stuck and glues against my eyelids.

Exhaustion clouds my mind and, I do t fight it as I know I should, I don’t know this this neighbourhood as well as I should, I give into the need to fall into a deep sleep like state of unconsciousness.

When I come to, I find myself bundled up in a cozy and comfortable blanket seating in a moving car.