suededvherty:
her leg outstretched, the other bent up against the small table where people came and went, sitting with computers and toast, others waiting like her for their order. her eyes flashed around the room: it was busy, always popular, but her baby blues did a double take when she noticed the familiar face. it was like waking up in the middle of the night and drinking a few big gulps of the water that sat on your bedside table ── it was refreshing in a way you weren’t expecting, that you didn’t even realize just how parched you were until you finally had that sip. he was wearing the shorts she had gifted him one christmas exchange, the mesh, breathable dark grey pair she had seen at alo yoga and thought he’d appreciate, but it didn’t mean much ── they were just shorts and he probably had picked them randomly. “here for a coffee or are you trying out that new keto smoothie like every other dickhead here?” her voice rang, teasing back at him, like maybe things were okay. were they? she wanted to look at him and have everyone else, the hustle and bustle of the shop they both once loved and came to together often to die out, so that she could properly look at him and realize why things with them had the tendency to fall apart too easily. she knew the answer, it left her biting at the insides of her cheeks and avoiding time spent alone too much, and it felt like something they both knew was there but wouldn’t acknowledge. “i didn’t really see you at the boy’s after party,” she interrupted, a hand reaching up to tighten her ponytail awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable for the first time in their silence. to be fair, suede hadn’t stayed around long for that party, but she remembered the eye contact her and theo made momentarily as she lit up a cigarette, something he never approved of her doing, and maybe a part of her did it just to spite him, to spite her mother, to spite the entire universe and the godforsaken fate it handed her. her toes threatened to tap at the floor, suddenly more wary of the tedious time it took to make her green smoothie than it did usually.
a smile was already tugging at theo’s lips at suede’s joke as if everything was fine between them. his anxieties about seeing her disappearing momentarily. and not surprisingly because if theo knew one thing, it was that being around suede was one of the only things that ever made him feel okay. even when he felt completely torn up about what he’d done and what he hadn’t done in regards to how he felt about her. all this time. “oh forgive me for being so cliche,” he remarked, the last word said in his attempt at an impression of a snooty voice. “i thought i’d give it a whirl. taste test. see how much of a dickhead i could turn into in just a few sips.” he was smirking, feeling lighter with just this little bit of interaction. a distraction for everything lying beneath. but as soon as she was mentioning the party, it was all starting to come back up. a memory. their eyes meeting for half a second as they often did whenever they were in the same room together. a cigarette between her fingers, which was a habit theo rather despised. at least when it came to suede. he could destroy his own body night after night with copious amounts of amber liquor, but he hated seeing her do something in any way destructive to herself. it was hypocritical but he didn’t care. she was perfect to him. “must’ve just missed each other, i guess.” he shrugged, not wanting to bring what he remembered up. what was the use? he’d spent the remainder of the night drinking and blowing off steam with rowan, and he actually kind of enjoyed it. if he’d ever let himself do something of the sort, so why couldn’t that just be enough? why did he have to feel this enormous guilt over it when suede would want that for him, wouldn’t she? “did you have a good time? anything interesting happen? or just the usual debauchery.”
