Bouquets of Chocolate (manxman)

Four

"Sorry, not today. I'll call you."

The moment when you realise how dependant you are on a single person that isn't you is never pretty. For me, it hits me like a brick to the face. Or at least the fact that I can't have that anymore does. I've always known there's a borderline unhealthy co-dependency between Jordie and I, but never bothered to think about what would happen if at one point, I'm the only one in it.

His words feel like getting slapped. While listening to the beep that tells me Jordie's hung up at an uncomfortably high frequency, I comb through a mental backlog of memories, trying to locate the last time Jordie just said no to me. And to my utter horror, I fail. Usually he'd either tell me to come to whatever it is he's busy with, or offer an alternative, another time to hang out, or maybe another way to. Hell, sometimes he just tells me to call him at a specific time instead and he'll make sure he's free then, if nothing else. But not today. Today is just a solid no, for god knows what reason. And it hurts. I always thought between us he's the clingy one, but I'm now starting to realise that that's likely just because he's honest about it. I hide behind my snarkiness and sarcasm and depend on him to read between the lines and just understand what it is I actually want. And because he's so ridiculously good at it, I've been spoilt for years and never even really knew until now. Fuck.

I finally take the phone away from my ear, hand the call up as well so that stupid beeping sound would stop, and decide to just go to sleep. I technically have orders to get started on, some planning to do for larger projects later in the year, and then some admin to keep up with, but I've been struggling to keep up with my own time table for days now. It started right around the time I realised that Jordie was avoiding me.

It's strange really, when we do meet, he's like he usually is, at least mostly. I find myself enjoying my time in the same way I always have, but it's become so hard to even get to that point. I never have been the one to ask to hang out. Sometimes, yes, but usually it'll be Jordie that just randomly shows up, or calls, or drags me places.

After lying in my bed like a dead potato for almost an hour, I get restless. I'm not actually tired, so sleeping was never really an option anyway. Instead I do what I always do when I can't cope with life, and the reason I've been eating sandwiches for lunch for days now; I make bread.

"I'm no expert, but I feel like if you keep punching that thing, it'll actually die, and I'm fairly sure yeast is meant to be alive."

"Fuck off." I say without stopping what I'm doing. I've been working the dough for too long now, but it doesn't seem to calm me down at all. If anything, the fact that it's not helping is making me angry.

"Wow rude. You said to visit you, so here I am." my sister tells me with mock hurt in her voice.

I sigh, letting the dough fall from my hands. It's good dough, even with my violent kneading, so it separates from my fingers easily without leaving any residue other than a thin film.

"I'm sorry Nic" I apologise quietly, still not turning around. I suddenly find it incredibly hard to not just cry and throw a tantrum. My sister is almost as big a weak spot of mine as Jordie.

"Is he still ignoring you?"

She knows all about my apparent Jordie related abandonment issues. When I can't talk to Jordie, she's always my first point of call.

"He's not really," I say, but when I look over at her unimpressed face, I backtrack, "So maybe he is a little, but he answers my calls and everything, it's just he's ... different. And I don't really see him all that often."

"You know what? I'll talk some sense into that idiot brain of his. He's probably just upset that you're better than him." she giggles. I snort.

"Hardly. Have you seen what he makes? He's a god in the kitchen." I immediately deny her every word. How she can't see how wrong she is is beyond me.