Minutes had passed and he still found himself standing in between the cheerfully chattering group, feeling strange and somehow disconnected. Like some piece off drift wood washed up on the London Embankment after a stormy Thursday night.

It's a peculiar sensation to feel alone in a room full of people, he thought, especially when one would like to engage in the fun, the laughter, the pointless discussions drowned at the open bar. But being away for a long time and then returning gives you a feeling of standing outside and watching, pushes you into the role of the observer, rather than someone who's allowed to take part. Because you missed something - too much. Whenever we're away, gone for a longer time and then come back home we have the irrational hope that nothing changed and the world stood still, waiting for your arrival.
But life goes on and so it did for Sukie, Titus and Mitchell
and he stood still in an art gallery among his friends and spent the night chasing after a dream, after the radiant woman at the end of the room in desperate hope, that maybe she could make him feel like he belonged.

"Have you quite finished?", Titus tapped his arm and upon his questioning glare added "Pitying yourself... you tend to do that sometimes"
"I do?"
"We all do, but your's is quite obvious ...", he chuckled. "D'you mind telling me what it's about this time?"
"Oh this and that, the heart wrenching desire to be loved and the existential dread that comes along ... the usual y' know"

Titus nodded in agreement, "I drink to that"

He must have said this a lot tonight, according to his staggering body and voice which he now dedicated to asking the girl Sukie had introduced a couple of minutes ago, exactly what shade of pink her hair colour was.
Upon trying to recall her name, nothing but a sense of guilt came up, especially considering the hopeful eyes she had been making at him ever since he joined their small circle. He smiled apologetically, in hopes that would explain that his attention had been drawn magnetically to the end of the room. To the red lipped smile and the messy blonde hair.

"Bloody hell, just go over there now", Mitch's voice suddenly rang into his ear. "You've been making the eyes at her all evening now. It's saddening and, I'm obligated to admit, if you'll continue to stand in a corner any longer, avoiding any conversation -which also goes completely against your nature, are ye alright?- while staring at a strange woman... then I'm afraid my dear, you'll look like a pervert"
He burst into a sincere laughter for the first time this night, "Fuck off".

The laughter on Mitch's face faded after a while before asking the words he asked himself over and over again in the past hour. The words he found no answer to himself, the self consciousness that sneaked up on him had not allowed him to answer.

"What's holding you back?"

A question that not solely applied to the blonde under the fluorescent lights of East London, but every piece of paper he had scribbled a song, a line of words onto only to throw it into the abyss of his living room floor. But more than anything, he felt, it applied to the reflection that stared at him every morning from the fogged up bathroom mirror - like an unrecognisable ghost standing in the place he used to be.

"Nothing"

And maybe Mitch was right when he said that. And maybe all it took were thirty seconds of bravery, thirty seconds that lead him across the room through a puddle of people, thirty seconds to look at the smeared ink on the paper in front of your hands instead of crumpling it up without a second thought, thirty seconds to ...

"Hello"

"Finally"

____________________________________________________

Mitchell being the voice of reason we all need every now and then.
I also edited the previous chapter, as the utter hate I feel for my own work made me unable to sleep at night. The sheer joys of being a frustrated perfectionist with terrible writers block, hihi. It now blends in better with the story, go check it out if you'd like :)