Chapter 21

My eyes slowly open as I hear hushed voices from the kitchen.
I'd fallen asleep on the couch with Olaf tucked under my arm and someone had pulled a blanket over us. I stare down at my fur baby as I try to concentrate on what Avi and Kevin are saying, it's difficult but I start catching a few words, nothing to make sense of though.
I snuggle Olaf closer and pull the blanket up a little higher as Avi and Kevin get a little louder. They never argued…
"I don't care what he did!"
"Are you not her friend Kevin?! How could you say that?!"
"It has nothing to do with her, I want to know how you, how you could do that to another human!"
"He's barely human."
"There was only strife because of a disagreement about the future. He had been sick Avi, they needed to have a proper conversation!"
They were arguing about me. I didn't like that.
"She tried Kevin, she tried and tried but he wouldn't let her speak, he shut her down so quickly and so often that I doubt he was ever sick at all!"
"You can't say that!"
"Yes I can, I truly believe that. Jeremy did not, and has never had cancer!"
"AVI!" Kevin yells. "This is serious!"
"This is bullshit Kevin, don't cringe! When you yell at me I'm going to fucking swear!"
Kevin must cringe again because Avi almost laughs, I can hear it in his voice.
"I cannot believe you're taking his side!"
"I'm not! I'm just trying to understand why you ever thought it would be okay to sleep with someone in a relationship, even if it was Kirstie and you've been in love with her since day one! I don't care how awful Jeremy was, they were in a relationship, and you don't do that!"
"That's the thing! They were, not me! It was her decision, and she told you that, she said that!"
"I'm not going to go and yell at a woman who just lost a child Avi!"
"Well good for you! But you seem to forget that I lost that child too."
The yelling stops and I hear footsteps walk off before a door slams, and judging by the distance, it's Avi's.
I squeeze my eyes shut when tears pool at the corners, then feel the wet trails rolls down my cheeks and into Olaf's soft white fur.
Kevin and Avi were arguing because of me.
I couldn't have that. I waited until Kevin finally walked off down the hall too and then I sat bolt upright causing Olaf to spring to action too. Reaching out I pick up Olaf's leash from the coffee table, I click it onto his collar then lead him to the front door.
It's like he knew, he knew what we were doing and didn't want to leave. Usually he was jumping at the door for a walk, scratching and panting, sometimes he'd dopily run into the door because he was so excited. But today he pulled and resisted, he wasn't leaving easily. I pulled on his leash, managing to open the door and finally pulling him out with the hard wood floor to my advantage. His claws may have scratched up the floor as we left but I might get a chance to deal with that later, but I doubt it.
I final close the door to the 3D-ragon apartment, and with tears still rolling down my face I pulled Olaf all the way out of the building. He finally stopped resisting when we got outside.
It was dark out, and colder than I'd expected. I run my free hand down my bare arm in a slight attempt to warm myself, but I can see my breath. It shouldn't be this cold, it's practically summer. With a shake of my head I keep going, with Olaf now leading me, I just kept on walking wherever he wanted to take me: as long as it wasn't in the direction we'd come from.

It must have been a couple of hours that we'd walked for, but as long as my baby wanted to keep going I'd let him, I didn't care where we went, I just wanted to go away. And I wasn't cold anymore so it was okay.
In the back of my mind I wonder if Avi and Kevin know I'm gone yet, or if they're too mad at each other to leave their rooms to check that I'm still on the couch, asleep. I'd left my phone there so they couldn't contact me anyway. And that was fine, I didn't want them to find me.
I didn't want them to find me until I was worth being found.