Crossing my arms over my chest I stormed off down the busy sidewalk with a shake of my head. How could someone be so inconsiderate? My heels clicked angrily as I walked desperately trying to get away from the incoming footsteps behind me.

“Hey,” He grabbed my arm and I turned forcefully.

“What?” I spat in his face searching his eyes for any sort of guilt.

“Let’s go catch a movie or something…” He suggested with a chuckle and a casual nod.

“Oh, were you planning to sneak in the theater like a sixteen year old so you wouldn’t have to pay
there either!” I shouted throwing my hands up in frustration.

“Raven…” He laughed shaking his head like this was all some casual misunderstanding. “You’re over reacting here.”

“Oh my fucking god…” I mumbled placing a hand to my forehead and taking a moment to collect my thoughts. “First of all, my name is Raegan…not fucking Raven-“

“Raegan, sorry.” He said interrupting me to which I responded with a finger upon his lips silencing him.

“Second of all, you tried to dine and dash. Third, you have the personality of a wet mop. And fourth,
I’m already in love with someone else. Goodbye, Jeremy.” I said with a sly smile knowing I had said his name wrong as I turned on my heel and continued my walk down the street to where my car was parked.

“It’s Jared!” I heard him call back.

“Like it fucking matters!” I screamed earning a few confused looks from passersby.

Anger coursed through my veins. How could I have been so stupid to have let Charlotte set me up with one of Thom’s (her fiancé) friends? Ever since he had put that ring on her finger she had become a miserable friend. I couldn’t wait to call her later and bitch at her for this complete fuckery of an evening.

It had been two weeks since Of Mice & Men had left for tour. Since Austin’s birthday, he had been playing the best friend card hard which had left me in a mess of emotions and confusion. How could he have gone from being all cute and flirty for weeks and then we have amazing sex on his birthday and now he’s acting like he’s my older brother. He was the one who had pushed me to go on this date, insisting he had a date of his own with some girl he met in Germany.

“I’ll bet she’s fucking ugly.” I said out loud yanking bobby pins out of my hair as I strolled down the sidewalk. “Her accent’s probably stupid too.”

I unlocked my car and climbed in with a groan of deep frustration. Starting the engine I pulled my phone out of my bag and tweeted about how awful my date was before pulling up Instagram which proved to be a mistake in itself. My newsfeed was filled with pictures of Austin and Alan having a great old time at some Starbucks in the middle of nowhere Europe.

“Oh, ha ha ha.” I mocked looking at them. I knew I shouldn’t have been taking the situation out on them. Realization hit me that I wasn’t mad at them. They didn’t set me up on the shitty date. They’re just working. I turned up the radio of my car and felt the tears come as Savior by Lights came through the speakers. The lyrics hit me like a ton of bricks as I sat in my car in a dark, lonely parking lot. I started bawling.

I missed my friends. I missed Austin. I missed what we had together. I was so sick of him dicking me around. I didn’t want to be with anyone else, but I didn’t know how much longer I could wait for him either.

“Ugh, go home Raegan…” I mumbled to myself putting my car into reverse and backing out. I heard my phone go off and looked down to see a notification from Twitter.

“@austincarlile: @Rae_Jones Aww I’m sorry :( Skype me when you get home boo”

“And here comes the verbal attacks from the fangirls…” I said with a laugh as I pointed my car home.

I made my way into the apartment where Hannah was cooking in the kitchen.

“Hey!” She called happily peeking over the counter top. “This is Michelle, Michelle this is Raegan.”

“Hey.” I said smiling at the cute blonde sitting at the bar watching what Hannah was doing.

“How was it?” Hannah asked peering over the tops of her glasses with a knowing smile.

“Awful.”

Her face dropped to an exaggerated pout. “Why!”

“Oh no!” Michelle said looking just as sad.

I slipped out of my heels and came into the kitchen. I poured myself a big glass of wine and took a sip
before telling the story.

“Shit…” I muttered realizing I had spilled some of the burgundy liquid on my cream colored dress.

“Okay, so we get to the restaurant right, and he didn’t talk the whole night. If I didn’t talk, there would have been no conversation! And all he did was talk about himself, not once did he ask me anything about myself or leave me an opening to talk about myself.”

“Oh I hate that…” Michelle said making Hannah nod.

“It gets worse.” I said taking another sip of the wine. “So then the bill comes and I say I’m going to slip out to the bathroom before we go. So I come out and he’s by the door looking ready to go and he was kind of rushing me out but I didn’t think anything of it. So we’re walking down the street and he’s trying to invite me out for coffee and all the sudden I hear someone chasing after us and I turn and it’s our waiter and he’s screaming about how we forgot to pay.”

“No!” Michelle said covering her mouth with her hands.

Hannah started to laugh as she cooked.

“He tried to fucking dine and dash. Yup. And wait, it gets better. He had no money…at all. So I had to pay the entire bill which was like seventy fucking bucks because he insisted on getting all these drinks and this bottle of wine. So then I storm off down the street because at that point I was done and he catches up to me and asks me to go to a movie, calls me Raven, and says I’m overreacting.”

Michelle and Hannah were both in tears as I wrapped up the story making me laugh too.

“At least you have a fabulous story.” Hannah said wiping her eyes.

“I’m going to fucking kill Charlotte.” I muttered taking a sip of my drink. “So then I cried in my car before I came here because I miss Austin.”

“Aw, Rae.” Hannah said draping an arm over my shoulders.

“Who’s Austin?” Michelle asked.

“The ex.” Hannah and I said at the same time making the three of us laugh.

“Well, you’re more than welcome to have some of my chicken fingers when I’m done!” Hannah said happily as she went back to tending the frying pan.

“Is that what that is?” I asked. “Smells so good.”

I went to my bag that I had dropped by the front door and pulled out my phone as Michelle and Hannah began to chat about someone they knew mutually. As I picked up my phone my FaceTime started ringing and I was a little happy to see Alan’s name on the screen.

“Hello Ginger Kitten!” I cried answering the call but seeing Austin’s face there instead. “Oh…it’s you.”

He laughed, “Sorry to disappoint you. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Why are you on Alan’s phone?”

“Mine wasn’t connecting to the WiFi. Are you home?”

“Yeah, I just got home.” I said with a sigh sitting down onto the couch. “How was the show tonight?”

“Good, I’m supposed to be on vocal rest but I wanted to talk to you.”

“Austin! You’re not supposed to do that!” I said feeling a little happy that he was risking his voice for me.

“I’ll be fine.” He said rolling his eyes.

“No! Go rest your voice, I’ll talk to you some other time.”

“Ugh, fine.” He pretended to be mad but then smiled wide. “Bye, Rae.”

“Bye.” I said hanging up with him and instantly going to text Alan to tell him what had happened on the date. I knew if I told Alan not only would he cheer me up by making jokes about it, but he would
tell Austin. And then I wouldn’t have to tell Austin.

I didn’t wait for his response. I put the phone down on the table and went to have fun with the girls while I could.