Chapter Text
Thankfully, over the last few months, you’d made friends outside of Adam. They were a god send as your relationship crumbled around you so quickly after it had begun.
Paula was a slightly older woman from your office that had taken you under her wing; she was brash and loud and spoke her mind at every turn. She was the exact opposite of you in so many ways but my god did she make you smile.
When Paula had gotten wind of what happened as you rolled into the office the next day looking like death warmed up she had immediately invited herself round for bottles of wine that night.
So now you were both sat on your couch, cross legged and facing each other, nursing very large glasses of red wine.
Your words were strangled as you fought back tears, “It just sort… came out of nowhere. I don’t know why he said it like that. Maybe he’s right.”
“No!” she shouted a little too loudly, “Fuck him! You try to talk him to about your feelings and he just acts like that?! AND runs away? Little bitch. Fucking MEN, so typical!”
Paula takes a dramatic sip of her drink to empty her glass adding a flourish of an end to her sentence.
“But he’s not typical,” you protested in a voice that was verging on slurring, “He’s not typical at all… he’s actually kind of odd.”
“Well odd or not I still think he’s a dick!”
------------------------------------------------
Every time you heard Adams door across the hall open and close your stomach tightened and your chest ached. Hearing his existence without you, just carrying on, made you curl up into a ball pulling your knees up and leaning against the cushions of your sofa.
Silent tears dripped down your cheeks when you heard him return, what you thought sounded like a plastic bag was rustling as he jangled his keys into the lock. He was quite loudly muttering to himself and before you could check yourself you felt a smile form on your lips.
Something felt like it had been cut out, like there was an unmistakable unmissable gap. So you wallowed, eyes puffy and red and knees up to your chest. You wallowed, longer showers when you could and eating nothing or everything. Everything was unsettled and you loathed how this ridiculous, bouncing, insensitive dick had walked into your life and then just took himself out of it.
Then it got infinitely worst as the sound of a lighter, feminine voice followed his. Without thinking you launched yourself out of your seat to peer through the door at them. Your eye pressed itself to the peep hole as you heard them still talking, you got a glimpse of a small woman with short brown hair and a pink t-shirt covering her back before the bang of his door cut them off. He’d brought a girl home, already. He’d walked out and instantly found someone else.
But the more you thought you realised he hadn’t walked, you had pushed. You’d made him feel unwanted because of your stupid thoughts and fears. You couldn’t have let yourself just live for once?
------------------------------------------------
It was late evening and the sickening smell from your overflowing trash can was driving you insane. Honestly your home was in a state of disrepair, lack of energy and copious evenings crying meant certain things had slipped through the net. But this one thing just couldn’t run any longer.
You got yourself up and bounced over to the piled high trash, feigning enthusiasm for your chores.
Grimacing you hauled the bag down the stairs of your building, door keys digging into your ass cheek where you’d stuffed them in your slightly too tight jeans pocket. Your eyes automatically avoided looking at Adams door as you stepped out of yours, heading straight for the stairs.
The soft pitter patter of rain greeted you as you approached the front entrance, judging by the slick sidewalk it had been pouring down without you noticing. Your little fluffy slippers that you’d chucked on your feet immediately slid around as you stepped out.
Scooting your feet you shuffled over to the dumpster, taking your time as you went. With a grunt you hauled the bag in and dusted off your now empty hands.
As you made your way back to the door your foot slipped on the mossy paving and your slipper abandoned you instantly. You flailed with a strangled screech and hit the ground hard. You cried out in pain as your knees scrapped along the paving, falling to your side with a thud, and it felt like your bones vibrated all the way up to your hips.
You half lay on the floor, in the rain, trying to gather yourself and just a little afraid to move as it felt like you’d shattered every bone in your lower body. Your skin stung and your head throbbed with the impact of your entire body tumbling to the hard floor. You blinked back tears, the kind of tears you used to cry as a child when you’d hurt yourself – big and dumpy. You sniffed and wiped your face, immediately regretting it as you wiped wet dirt from the floor across your cheek.
If you felt low before you’d left the apartment this just brought you lower, there really wasn’t any further for you to go at this point.
The shock lifted a little and with a pathetic whine you pushed yourself to your feet. Already blood was seeping through your light jeans and you winced, patting it and recoiling.
The shuffling was even slower as you steadily got yourself to the door and inside. Your entire body throbbed as you tried to pull yourself back up the stairs.
“Ow,” you whimpered softly to yourself.
You heard footsteps ahead of you but didn’t look up until you heard the voice, “Jesus fucking Christ kid what did you do?”
“I tripped,” you muttered, trying to pull yourself up another step. You didn’t look at him but you could feel the overwhelmed presence of his large body above you, like the shadow of him crowded you.
He started to make his way down the stairs towards you, hands already reaching for you, eyes wide in horror at the state of you, “…and then got hit by a truck or what? You gotta be careful, here let me…”
“I’m fine,” you cut him off harshly, holding your hand up to stop him. He halted on the step above you, face unreadable, and he stepped to the side to wave you past him.
Suddenly you felt his hand on your lower back as you wobbled a little finding your feet, the warm touch sent a shiver up your spine but you bit back the urge to say something and kept putting one foot in front of the other.
“At least let me patch you up,” he insisted as you both silently reached the no mans land between your two doors, you had your back to him and as you turned the way he was looking at you made you melt.
His eyebrows were drawn up and his eyes were the most puppy-dog thing you’d ever seen, but it felt so genuine not fake or manipulative to get you to talk to him. He honestly just wanted to care for you and it made your heart squeeze inside your chest.
You solemnly nodded his face lighting up as he clicked his key into the lock on his door and ushered you inside.
------------------------------------------------
“I saw that girl going into your apartment last night,” you mummered, looking down at him kneeling before you. You’d been trying not to say it but it was the only words that fell out of your stupid mouth as your awkward need to fill the silence took over.
You were sat in his living room, on a dining table chair, in your pants. Your jeans had been too tight to roll up your leg and after protestations from you he’d convinced you to pull them off. So you sat clutching your blood stained jeans and tried not to look him in the eye too often as you pulled the waistband of your panties up a little.
He tentatively tended to the wound that was throbbing on your knee, so much so you didn’t think he’d heard you until he spoke distractedly, “What girl?”
You cringed, “I know it’s none of my business I’m just saying… I saw her. She looked nice, pretty.”
You actually had no idea what she looked like or what the fuck you thought you were doing making conversation about this of all things?! There was a momentary silence as he applied a bandage across your knee, patting it gently, “Oh, you mean Hannah?”
You laughed awkwardly, “I don’t know her name.”
He shook his head dismissively, “That’s just fucking Hannah, we dated like a year and half ago and she only just returned my shit can you believe that?”
You scoffed sympathetically but didn’t say anything. Your mind was reeling whilst equally feeling silly about the rise of hope you felt in your chest.
“Seriously there was a shirt in that box I’ve been looking for like…fucking ever! I thought Ray stole it or some shit.”
There was a heavy silence that blanketed the room as he looked you over for more bumps and scrapes. He found a pretty deep gash on the side of your arm so he sat next to you, scooching you over so he could apply ointment to it. You weren’t even sure how it had got there.
“We’re not dating or anything, in case you were wondering,” He muttered into the silence, eyes fixated on your arm a little too closely.
“I-I wasn’t. Just… making an observation,” you stammered.
He smiled to himself, “Didn’t you hear us arguing? I was worried I’d wake you up… yelling too loud or whatever. Didn’t you hear it? She just bugs the fuuuuuck out of me.”
“Well… yeah but… you yell a lot,” you giggled, “It’s sort of nothing to worry about anymore.”
Then you realised that in amongst an uncomfortable and clearly irritating situation he’d been thinking about you. You bit back the smile that twitched at the corner of your lips.
“All done!” his sudden voice jolted you out of the racing thoughts. You smiled, “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”
“When you’re all healed up you should come dancing,” he said randomly, playing with his fingers and avoiding your eyes.
“Dancing?” you questioned, hauling yourself to your feet. You hobbled to the door to open it and head home but he tutted admonishingly and beat you to it, large hand beating yours to the handle.
“Yeah, dancing. I go dancing with Tako and her friends on the last Saturday of the month, you should come.”
You shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe.”
“I’ll remind you and you can tell me then. Deal? Ok deal,” he rushed through his sentence as you made your way out the door, shutting it behind you before you could answer. The last thing you saw was that cheeky, self-assured smirk.
You sighed and leant against the wall in the corridor, staring at the new closed door and empty space, “Deal.”