Thus passed a couple more days, waiting for June and sharing breakfast with Bax. Making random conversations, and sometimes not a word at all. Instead, they'd watch funny videos on Chad's tablet or laptop, whichever he had on him on the day. The morning June ambled along with her hands deep in her pockets and a deep frown on her face, Bax and Chad were doing just that, watching silly cat videos, and laughing. Bax was even snorting coffee out through his nose when she stood in front of them, waiting.

It took them a while to notice.

"Hey, June." Chad smiled, offering her coffee she wouldn't take.

"What are you doing here?" She glared at him instead.

Chad could hear the seriousness in her tone and closed the laptop despite Bax's protests. "Breakfast and funny videos?" he tried.

"What have I been telling you, Bax?" She turned to his companion, equally disappointed.

Bax sulked. "Leave him alone?"

What? Chad turned to Bax, then June, then Bax again. "Why?"

She ignored him. Her eyes locked on Bax till he got off the bench. The man then turned to Chad, unable to make eye contact. "Look, Chad..." he began, his words heavy and hesitant, like they weighed a ton. "It's been great and all... but it's probably not good for you... or us to keep this up."

"We can't keep taking advantage of your kindness and generosity," June added sternly. "Look, I know you mean well, and we appreciate it, a lot, more than we can say. Bax here even thinks of us as friends, and misses you, but really. We live here. For us, this is life, but it doesn't have to be for you. Go home, Chad, get back to your life, because this isn't it. You will not find whatever you're looking for, here!"

Chad placed his laptop on the bench and stood, flabbergasted. "Nobody is making me do this. You two know that, right? I am here out of choice, because I want to be."

Bax tensed, sensing June look his way. He stepped back and away from Chad. "I'll see you another time, maybe, mate. You take care." He turned and went back to chasing the sun before the two of them had watched funny videos. "Leave you two to sort it out."

June waited until Bax was out of earshot before she turned to Chad. "What the hell do you think you're doing, anyway? Bringing us coffee and pastries in the mornings? What gives you the power to be the only wonderful thing either of us have in our stupid, miserable lives?"

"I..."

"That's right. All you can ever say to me is 'I'. Ever thought about what this is doing to us? Ever thought how we feel, or how we will feel, the day you stop turning up with breakfast and coffee, and we finally realise you're not coming back, ever?"

He shook his head, almost able to sense the tears she was fighting, the emotions that were causing a storm inside. Yes, Chad hadn't really thought this through. He hadn't, because it hadn't even occurred to him that one day, soon, he would stop coming. It was inevitable; it was life. People moved on.

She stared at the ground, and when she looked back up, there were tears in her eyes and her harsh demeanour had softened. "It's making us dream, Chad... that's a bad thing for people in our..." her voice cracked, struggling to get out at all. She sniffled, unable to keep the tears from streaking down her cold cheeks that icy, windy, June morning. She was struggling to tell him to stop, stop visiting, stop.

Chad couldn't help but take her in his arms. It was the first time he'd touched her or she'd allowed. She didn't protest. The sobs came in faster and faster, and he didn't care for the looks they got from people passing by. "We can't afford to dream..." she was saying in between hiccups.

It took her a moment to gather herself, and when she did, she pushed him away, wiped her eyes and runny nose, and toughened up once more, like she was used to. "We need you to go. Let our lives get back to their normal, or this life, what little we have left, will destroy every shred of our dignity..."

Chad nodded, barely comprehending what she was saying. Tears stung his eyes vehemently. He was trying to ignore what she was saying to be honest, but he couldn't ignore her tears. "You want me gone?"

She shook her head. "Yes."

"So we say our goodbyes?"

She nodded this time, eyes averted from his. "Yes."

"Is that why you've been avoiding me?" A single drop slithered down his cheek, and he quickly wiped it away, not wanting her to notice.

She nodded. And suddenly, to Chad, the breakup with Setal was nothing compared to this. He'd never realised friendships were harder to lose than dysfunctional relationships.

"I can't do this," she mumbled. "I can't. You don't know how hard this is for me to say, Chad, but I can't..."

Chad felt his throat knotting. "Can I visit?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "No, because this is you visiting."

"I guess calling is out of the question then?"

"I don't have a phone." She laughed, sniffling into her sleeve again. "Stolen, and I think Bax may have hawked his since he has no one to call." She rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek gently. "I hope you will have a wonderful life, I really do." With those words, her footsteps retrieved from him, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the park, cold, a little broken, and friendless. He had Terry, and his family whom he needed to visit soon, but this was different. The loneliness was almost a heavy shadow standing next to him saying, 'Hello, friend,' and he didn't want to say hello back.

Chad waited an hour before realising they truly weren't coming back. This was not a joke. With nothing better to do, he headed home.

He froze as he walked in through the front door. The place was almost as empty as he felt, bare, and not good for anything other than resting a weary head. At least he had this, whereas God only knew how June and Bax spent their nights out there in the cold.

He couldn't sleep that night, worried about his friends. Could he keep away from them? Could he sit without a care in the world at Tylor's café from now on and not feel a thing looking out at the Park? No, he couldn't. Not really. With these thoughts swirling in his head, Chad sat on his bed, trying to distract himself. He'd always written better when he was emotional, and that night he couldn't even describe the feelings. Maybe words will come find him now?

So he sat, in the dark gloomy room with the clock ticking closer to midnight, his legs stretched out before him whereupon his laptop rested, open to a new page. It's small black cursor blinking expectantly at him like an old friend, one who would never tell him to go away. It was a strange feeling, staring at the old object with newfound appreciation. A friend, not foe!

He poised his fingers atop the keyboard, resting on the keys out of habit. He closed his eyes, feeling the cold keys beneath his fingertips. He started typing with little thought or plan. It had been weeks, but as he started, the words poured out, words that started as random thoughts, angry thoughts, hurt thoughts. Yet, he was happy he was writing something at least.

When he went over it in the next hour, he sighed, closed the laptop and threw it aside. He'd written a journal entry and that never bode well for him. He would need to see his psychologist soon if that kept up. To get all the junk out so it couldn't pour into his work. Last time he'd let his feelings infuse into one of his books, it hadn't gone down well with the fans. He didn't need that again. Fans were all he had.

Chad could feel the throbbing at his temples and welcomed the pain. At least, for the moment, they were distracting him from his actual problem. He'd lost two people he cared for, all in a day. He closed his eyes and welcomed the uncomfortable sleep with its disturbing dreams.

When he woke, the sun was hiding like a shy child behind a heavy blanket of clouds. He could smell the wetness lingering in the air before it had even rained. He forced himself out of bed and changed into a tracksuit, and left the house on foot, minus an umbrella. He needed a walk, to feel the cold against his face, to feel the hard ground beneath his feet. Eventually, the heavens opened as he completed his first lap around the block. He contemplated walking into the house and grabbing an umbrella, but by that point he was wet to the bones. Besides, he was sure the one umbrella he remembered might have been Setal's and therefore no longer in his house. He spun himself around with an extra spring in his step, having dodge that bullet, and powered on down the street, determined to complete another lap. When the rain became too much, he found himself a shelter beneath a quaint store's awnings.

The door behind him opened, and a small lady appeared, holding a styrofoam cup out to him. "I thought you could do with a cuppa." She smiled as Chad reached for the offering, and just like that, she disappeared back inside the store. As he sipped that cup of hot tea while watching the rain pour down, cold and shivering, it finally hit him. How June and Bax must have felt every time he met them with food and a warm drink. A mixture of gratitude, disbelief, anger, and shame, and he began understanding why she sent him away.

Keeping away from Hyde Park or Tylor's café for the next few days was hard to do. He couldn't bring himself to walk to the station, catch a train, and go to the café to sit there, pretending as if the last weeks had been his imagination. As if June and Bax no longer existed other than in the realms of his mind.

♡

One morning, few days since their breakup, Chad sat on his kitchen bench-top, legs folded beneath him, eating from a bag of red seedless grapes, still in his pyjamas. He had turned into a recluse, even more so than before. This was what he was reduced to so he could respect June's wishes. He sat and listened to the radio, cranked up high, his only human contact in the last forty-eight hours. He wasn't paying attention to it either until a news bulletin sent him flying off the bench-top and pouncing on the radio, listening intently.

In other breaking news, a bearded, unidentified, middle-aged man, one of Sydney's many living on the streets, has been pronounced dead upon arrival at Royal Alfred after coming under a bus in the early morning traffic, outside St James station. Horrified witnesses say they saw the man run straight into oncoming traffic on Elizabeth Street, sustaining injuries that proved fatal. The police are urging anyone with information regarding the man or his next of kin to come forward.

A chill coursed through Chad again and again. Something told him he knew the man. He quickly changed into whatever clothes he could find around his bed, not caring for a shower, or comb his dishevelled hair. Or address the three-day shadow decorating his face. He grabbed his coat and ran out the door, leaving the radio on behind him in an empty house.

(Image by Olesky@Ohurtsov on Pixabay)