Chapter 7
"sorry"
Karma had been driving an awfully long time, Amy looked around and saw nothing but fields and trees on each side of the car, now that she actually thought about it she couldn't recall seeing a car in at least half an hour, she looked harder and further around herself at the non-descript surroundings and then to the profile of the red head sat beside her. Karma's eyes where burned into the road ahead of her, her knuckles showing white with her hands gripping onto the steering wheel keeping the car steady on the bumpy country roads. Amy studied harder, her mind starting to wonder, was she being kidnapped? There was nothing apart from them and this road, yeah, this was how she was going to die she thought to herself. It would be fantastically tragic. A young writer on the cusp of greatness, struck down in the prime of life by her psychotic ex-girlfriend.
"Why do you keep staring at me?" she asked alternating her eyes from the road to Amy
"Sorry" she muttered, and dropped her eyes to the fumbling hands in her lap, "Where are we going?"
Karma smiled, "Just a little place I know, don't worry I'm not kidnapping you", she joked and looked to Amy who was now smiling nervously.
"Oh my God, You think I'm kidnapping you"
"No, that would be silly!" Amy took a little too long to answer
Karma looked back to the road again. Then back to Amy.
She often wondered what went in inside the blondes head, she was so fantastically imaginative that sometimes she really did let her imagination run wild. She usually loved it, it reminded her of the many days they would spend together making up stories. The locations didn't matter, time didn't matter, and Amy could make a story out of anything. They would spend hours and hours lost in a fantasy world orchestrated completely by Amy's imagination, Karma loved her daily visits to these worlds, to other lives. To possibilities that where endless. It was magical, it made her believe in a magic that the cold hard world was missing. It made her believe in happily ever after.
"What?" Amy asked suspiciously eyeing the smile that had crept along Karma's lips.
"Nothing" she shook her head and both girls returned to staring at the road as it unfolded in front of them.
"Is it much further?" Amy groaned as Karma manoeuvred her up a clearing path while covering her eyes with her hands.
"Stop moaning, I'm the one struggling, you seem freakishly taller than normal"
"It's not my fault you're like 4 inches tall"
"Funny"
They came to a stop at the top of a hill, there was nothing but grass and hills around them apart from a small but extremely beautiful gushing waterfall. The water streamed majestically 14 feet down into a small ravine. It was gorgeous, and serene. Karma pulled her hands from Amy's eyes and instantly Amy basked in her surroundings. She didn't say anything, she couldn't even if she wanted to she was dumbfounded by the beauty that was in front of her, she just stood at the edge, holding onto the man made banister watching the water. The splashing of the water echoed around them creating the only noise that could be heard. Karma stepped back until she was sitting on the bench, shoving her hand in her hoodie pocket for heat she watched Amy see her little corner of serenity for the first time and she was reminded of the first time she found the clearing when she was on her week long health kick after Amy moved to New York. She woke up one morning after a sleepless night and needed to run, as fast and far as she could. Taking to the woods she pounded along the paths until her legs where about to drop off, looking for a seat she saw the clearing and had become obsessed with it.
It was her place to go alone and think, to sort her head out, or just for peace and quiet. There was always something missing though, and today she realised what that missing part was.
"Its absolutely stunning" Amy breathed, still transfixed in the vison in front of her. Karma in turn was transfixed in the vision in front of her
"It really is" she smiled to herself.
Amy eventually turned and moved over towards Karma taking the seat beside her and without thinking Karma laid her head instinctively on Amy's shoulder,but only for a second until she felt Amy's body stiffen at the over familiarity.
"Are we going to talk about Friday?" Amy asked not taking her eyes from the waterfall. Karma sighed and removed her hands from her pocket and swung her body around so that she was sitting with cradled legs facing her side,
"What about it?"
Amy turned, and looked at her. Karma looked at the bench and began to dig her nails into the wooden ridges. It was Sunday. Almost two whole days had passed and neither broached the subject until now. After karma broke down Amy put her to bed, fighting against every urge to crawl in beside her and hold her for the first time in months. Saturday was weird, they talked but didn't, mostly random stuff about the last few months, when it came close to even the temptation of talking about anything else one or both would the change the conversation. Both skating around the subject.
"Karma"
"Amy"
"Karma!"
"Ok, what do you wanna know?"
"Why have you ignored me the last couple of months?"
"It was easier" she shrugged picking at the wood again
"Than what?"
"It doesn't matter" she replied peeling a slither of wood from the bench and throwing it to the side
"Tell me" Amy begged
Karma looked up to Amy who was staring back, her crystal eyes twinkling from the glare of the water. Then back down to the crumbling wood chips.
"looking you in the eyes, living without you was the hardest things I ever had to do Amy, it hurt not having you there, it hurt not talking to you every day, I had to learn to live a new normal, I had to learn to live in a world that you weren't apart of and it almost destroyed me"
Amy gulped back the lump that rose in her throat, she looked away and swiped a tear that had fallen.
"and then all of a sudden you're back, without a word of warning, I just wasn't ready to look at you again, " Karma sniffed back a tear
"It wasn't easy for me either Karm"
"I know"
"but seeing you in that club kissing Sabrina, something inside me snapped, and for that I'm sorry"
Amy reached out and put her hand over Karma's and squeezed it,
"You don't need to be sorry, but for what it's worth I'm sorry too"
Karma finally looked back and smiled.
"Yeah you better be, because I'm finally ready to look at you again"
"Me too"
They both smiled inanely at each other before engulfing each other in a huge hug both clinging to each until they almost fell off the bench.
Monday came round far too quickly, Amy was sore from the miles of walking Karma made her do the day before but still managed to pull herself up onto the high stool in the corner of the coffee shop, she took a sip from her coffee and placed it back onto the table, across from her sat another coffee but Sabrina hadn't arrived yet. Amy felt nervous, more nervous than she usually did before their meetings, she put it down to their kiss in the club and their brief touch of lips when she walked Sabrina back to her room that night. The door opened and her eyes flicked to it, but it wasn't Sabrina. She looked to her watch, she was already nearly 15 minutes late, and Sabrina was never late. She began to panic, what if she wasn't going to show, what if Friday night had been too much for her. Worrying she felt for her cell in her pocket and pulled it out. But she needn't have bothered, two hands covered her eyes and she felt a breath whisper in her ear.
"Guess who?"
She smiled and a sense of relief washed over her, she pulled at the hands and allowed the body to swing into view, Sabrina smiled broadly as she hopped up onto the opposite stool. Amy watched her intently as she took a swig from her coffee and sat it back down in front of her being careful to wipe away any stray foam that didn't make it into her mouth. She found the entire movement oddly hot.
"So how was your weekend?" she smiled
"It was," Amy stopped, she was about to say great, but that would follow up on explaining why it was so great. How could she tell the person that she was potentially dating, that also happened to be her ex-girlfriend that she had an amazing weekend due to the fact that she made up with her best friend who also happened to be her ex-girlfriend. Her head almost melted.
"Amy?"
She snapped her eyes back to Sabrina
"Sorry, what?"
"Your weekend?"
"erm yeah, it was ok" she shrugged her shoulders and tried to calm down. Hoping this would cease any further questions about this weekend.
"and Karma, did you speak to her at all?"
Amy's head melted again, this was it, this was the moment she was about to witness Sabrina scoot out of here like Wyllie coyote, beep beep. She leaned forward and took a longer than needed sip of her coffee and watched the cup as she placed it down on the table in front of her. Sabrina watched the entire interaction raising one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.
"um, yeah actually she was back at the dorm when I got back on Friday" Amy didn't look up, she had to play this off as neutral and natural as possible. Sabrina leaned back in her seat as though she was steadying herself.
"Ok, what happened?"
"Nothing really, we just talked" Amy shrugged eyes still fixed on the mug in her hand
"And are you guys, like friends again?"
Amy nodded,
"Yeah, I think we managed to sort everything out"
"Oh"
"But, just friends, were not anything more." Amy was in full panic mode, she left out the part that it was Karma that made it clear they were just friends, and it wasn't until she said it out loud she realised that she was disappointed by the "friends" label. She looked to Sabrina, who's eyes where worriedly travelling every millimetre of her face.
"So where does that leave us?" Sabrina carefully asked
"There's an us?"
"There is if you want there to be"
Amy didn't answer, she didn't have to. The smile on her face said it all, the smile on her face quelled any doubt the Sabrina was having.
"It's just so frustrating, I'm so frustrating"
Karma threw herself down on top of the bed face planting the mattress, and beating it with her closed fists. Shane looked at the heap and rolled his eyes before going back to perfectly ironing his shirt.
"You're telling me"
She rolled onto her side and glared at him, resting her head on her arm. She picked up her phone that landed beside her when she fell and threw it away again after checking for the non-messages that where on it. She groaned again, he rolled his eyes again.
"If you didn't mean it, then why say it?"
He made it seem so simple and Karma hated him for it. She wanted to scream at him that she only said it because she thought that's what Amy wanted to hear. She didn't want to just be friends with Amy, she never wanted to ever just be friends with Amy but In that moment with those glistening pools of blue staring wide eyed at her, she truly believed that's what she wanted. So she said it, she told the love of her life that they were better as friends and she's hated every minute since.
"Cos I'm in idiot"
"Oh, two for two" Shane quipped and received a frosty stare from karma.
"Look, you and Amy are meant to be, it's cosmic or whatever, you will work it out"
"You really think so?" she sat up, optimism ringing through her, Shane looked at her and rolled his eyes at her naivety
"It's time for you to leave, I have a date with red shirt and you need to not be here," he said reaching over to her and pulling her off the bed then shoved her towards the door.
"Ok, I love you bye" he said closing the door leaving her standing in the hallway.
Amy sat on the window ledge typing into her laptop. She was wearing her maroon university hoodie with the hood up and had her right leg curled under her on the ledge with her left leg swinging over the edge, there was no light in the room other than the glow radiating from her screen, it's how she loved to write, it's how she felt comfortable writing, it's when she was most focused. Nothing but the sound of keys tapping and her own thoughts. She wrote sentence after sentence, not stopping for spelling mistakes, loads of red and blue squiggly lines appeared on her page but she simply ignored them, and continued to watch her own fingers dance along the keys. Words where pouring thick and fast from her fingertips and she was completely engrossed in her own little world.
So much so she didn't notice Karma enter the room and approach her, her bones almost jumped out of her skin when she felt a hand land on her shoulder, she jumped that much that it caused Karma to also jump with fright, both girls laughed and threw their hands over their chest trying to stop their frantically beating hearts.
"What are you writing?" Karma asked looking at the blue faced Amy thinking how cute she looked in her oversized hood. Amy looked back to her screen then back To Karma, she suddenly didn't remember a single word that she had written,
"It's just an idea I had for a short story" she said pulling down the screen and leaving them in darkness, she quickly opened the screen again until Karma managed to locate an actual light while laughing.
"Thought you were going out tonight?" Amy asked sliding down from the ledge and landing on her feet. She stretched up to the ceiling with both her hands intertwined and cracked almost every bone in her body at the one time. Karma winced, but almost stopped dead when she turned her eyes and managed to catch just the slightest flash of stomach skin as Amy's hoodie rode up. It was almost nothing but it was enough to send a flush through her skin and a quiver in her breath. She turned her back to the blonde to try and hide her reaction, acting as though she had walked in on her in the shower and was giving her privacy.
"Have you eaten yet?" she asked not looking over her shoulder, Amy broke from her stretch and looked confusingly at Karma's back, trying to figure out why it was that she was looking at and not her face.
"No, do you wanna get a pizza or something?" she answered and continued to watch the back Of Karma's head.
An hour later, karma tipped the pizza delivery guy and closed the door, Amy was sat on her bed with the laptop balancing on her knees, ready to hit play on the Netflix film they had spent the last half an hour trying to choose. Karma shuffled up on the bed and landed next to Amy, who had placed the laptop between both their legs, she handed her a piece of pizza and they both rested back on the wall for support. Things felt like they were finally getting back to normal and they both took great comfort in it.
