You know that feeling when you haven't quite gotten over something—someone?

That is me right now. Proved by the clench of my hand and the weight filling my chest. It is certain I haven't forgotten him, what he did. Rather, what he didn't do. Factually, yes, he did nothing, so I should forgive and forget. But, it is also fact that he did nothing, so I should smack the dazed look from his still puppy-like face.

Both are one and the same.

He said he would call me. He didn't. He walked away from the football field, a deflated football in hand. He walked away from me, nose crooked and bleeding after that late summer's eve. He walked away, never came back, never said goodbye, never performed our special handshake–a top secret best friend promise.

I never got to know if his nose was okay, if he was going to make our more than friendship publically official, if he was going to the creek the next evening. Simple worries. 

Dax grins.

He's too energetic. How was I ever friends with this fool? No, he was never like this before. Dax had been a quiet person. He never spoke unless spoken to. He slunk in my shadow. He was my shadow, and I let him stay there, follow my footsteps, become my friend, then my more than friend.

A pang echoes in my chest. I was his voice at times. The times when he wouldn't stand up for himself. Advocating. He had asked me the purpose of it. A form of communication. That was my simple reply. All was simple then.

Until nothing was.

The look in his widened eyes, previously something of shock, transforms. Glee. A gay type of enthusiasm. Elated. Jubilant. Pure joy to see me as if he is a literal puppy, he approaches, excited, bouncy, ears metaphorically flapping and tail wagging.

With no reply from me, Dax seems to absorb more energy from somewhere deep within. "It is you, Olly! I would know that look from anywhere!" His voice comes out in a screech, something no short of a yip a puppy would give a dog twice its size, trying to play or intimidate the giant opponent.

Another foul taste stirs in my mouth, digging deeper.

I hate him.

No, I hate past me.

I hate idiotic past me.

"My name is Dawn. And it's been awful to meet you," I say, deadpan. Dax squirms under the heat of my eyes. The uncomfortable shift is oddly satisfying. To think, I was attempting to calm his younger doppelganger moments ago. "Who do I have the oh-so-sweet displeasure of meeting?"

"Dax. My name is Dax." He seems unconvinced by my act, slanting his eyebrows like a German Shepard puppy would when confused. In another second, Dax frowns, a bit flustered. "I'm sorry... I thought you were someone I used to know" –he scratches his neck, a familiar gesture– "but I guess you're not her. I'll replace your clothes and give back your money for the washer."

A hysterical laugh surfaces in my throat. There is no replacing the dance costume, Dax. Sure, I can replace the workout attire thrown into the mix—the heap of material still in the death machine–but there is no replacing the costume. Not soon at least.

But I have to try.

I need a damn plan.

"Don't worry, I'll figure it out," I mutter in reply.

Gritting my teeth, I yank my soaked athletic wear from the washer, examining the orange splotched damage. Not an article left unharmed. Brilliant.

'Let me help." His voice is guilt-ridden. I don't have to look to know. "Look, I feel guilty."

I toss colored clothes into a washer beside. "Pity."

"Only the Olliver Bronagh I knew is gutsy enough to say that to a stranger."

The name, my old name, is a kick to the gut. My eyes remain on the washing machine. The machine, the trap that ends my career.

"It would appear you haven't met many people, then," I say, and then, "Did you grow up in a cave oh so noble fool?"

The last statement hits him where I know it will, somewhere deep inside, a part of him that couldn't have changed after all this time. Dax takes a step back.

"You remember me," Dax says after a moment, tapping his chin. Some things never seem to change. Not his posture, slouched just slightly, or the gleam he sports in his eyes, bright. But this odd enthusiasm and not to mention his attire is startling. "You remember me!" His smile grows wide, something I would have never imagined Dax to do so quickly. Yet here he is, yelling and grinning. "But what's with the fake name and pretending?"

"I changed my name, Dax," a pause, "No contact with you is optimal for me." Bending my head toward him, I string another sentence together, my voice still hard and my shoulders still rigid. "I forget quite a lot. Would you mind filling me in?"

"You were never this snarky before," Dax mutters under his breath.

I can only roll my eyes.

He should know better.

Eight years changes people.

Footsteps retreat, several paces back, but lingering close. I don't let my eyes chase after the fool nor do I let my mind wander from the task at hand. But the latter seems to have already occurred.

For a second, I'm convinced Dax will leave me be, a conversation unhad, nothing resolved, no hate or bitter feeling rehashed in me. Not yet. An explanation could clear our past chaos, disprove the truth I've lived by or further prove it. With no explanation, it could be better this way. We don't need each other. We don't need to reconnect. We don't need to be friends. I'm not a good one either way.

The fact burns in my memory and repeats again.

I wasn't a good friend.

Not the way people would expect another to be. I didn't make friendship bracelets or have sleepovers or whisper secrets or chatter constantly. I solved problems, questions. He asked questions constantly. Homework questions. Girl questions. Random questions about the universe. I had an answer for everything eventually.

He didn't need my answers.

But he wanted them.

Those memories are relentless. I would have had a painless high school experience without his memory eating all the empty space in my mind. I hate my mind for that. If I had cleared my head, focused on what really mattered, I wouldn't have consumed so much of my time in aimless, and quite depressing, sulking. I failed that way. I failed. There is no getting that time back.

No take-backs.

Quick approaching, footsteps right behind, I know Dax places a hand on my shoulder. The weight is heavy and I have the compulsion to sling the limb far away. "Do you, do you want to catch up? Over lunch I mean?"

The simple answer. "No." Laundry detergent makes a place in my hand, and I pour the liquid into the second machine. With a flick of my wrist, I press start.

Paranoia creeps in, making me question everything. The feeling makes me turn to the machine again, and again, checking if another piece of clothing is ruined. If something else went wrong.

I won't let that happen.

Nothing else will go wrong.

The lights above flicker, and for a second, I wonder if the world will end at this moment. For the better, maybe, if the world ended now. But then again, there is still too much left to be conquered. So much I can't give up on, and this performance is one of those things.

Speeding from my spot, I race to my nearly empty basket, mind whirling with a relay of a new solution.

Get a new costume. Find one. The company that provided the outfit. The smaller business on the near outskirts of downtown L.A.. They should have prototypes, correct? I'll have just enough time to pick up the costume before the performance in Santa Monica. Even before, I should be able to get more clothing for training and have time to spare for warm-up.

There's barely enough time, only nine hours to run with.

Dax remains at arm's length. If I wanted to, I could place my hand on his arm, draw him into a warm embrace, let him question everything like nothing changed. He knows. I know. We changed. He isn't the boy I used to know, and I'm not the same girl. I'm not Oliver–his Olly anymore. I'm Dawn Bronagh. A new person with a new legally changed name in a new city. I'm not the same person Dax knew, and he knows it.

"Wait!" His voice comes in a strangled shout, making me pause ten paces from the threshold. Shifting my detergent-filled basket in my hands, I met his eyes, glowering, wanting so badly to show him exactly how I felt, exactly what I haven't let go. The self-hatred I had held so closely to my heart, the pain I still harbor. I hate all that came with his parting. I hate all that came after, but I can't make myself hate the before. "What about the handshake?" His eyes dart, left, right, up, down, in every direction but my face.

The handshake. Somewhere, something shreds within me. Our handshake. The top secret best friend pact. Our unsaid and undying promise. Pact. Pledge. Action of honor. He left without completing our handshake that afternoon. Dax has already said quite enough. He didn't even need words then, a win in his junior high years per se.

But his parting presence was too sudden. He didn't leave, his family didn't leave, by will. That much I know. Whatever the circumstance, my chest still burns.

Friendship, close non superficial friendship, hurts.

My voice comes in a breathy gust, like the kind of wind Dax and I would listen to under an October sky "We aren't friends" –or anything more– "now, Dax."

"But we could be." Desperation leaks through his tone, a thin layer of dust waiting to be blown off, restored to new or a semblance of what it once was. "Why not give this–me a chance?"

Blue steers my brain closer to his call for a refresh button, though we both know we can't fully recover, like what he used to say about painting, something I can't remember. He is everything I want to forget, and I was successful in deleting his wise-crack phrases from my mind. It's like he never said anything, never looked at me and uttered a phrase too old and wise for his young lips.

But we were young. I was young and easily formidable against emotions. Easily overpowered by the unreliable and I find myself relying on such a substance now.

A glance at the washer behind me informs me what I need to do. A twitch and turn of my head later, and his light eyes great mine. As if he already knows the words balancing on my tongue, his eyes grow to a smile.

"Twenty-one minutes, Marten."

Another chapter is out!

By the time I'm done posting this, It'll be a record for me consistently posting in the same week. Four times. The most I've ever done prior is two.

Any thoughts?

What do you think is going to happen next?

Do these two even stand a chance?

Word count: 1,842