Off to help with an open evening at school soon, thought I'd upload this first! Please review, it makes me really happy :) Bear with me, this will hopefully be more dramatic in the next chapter, just taking me a little while to get where I want.
Chandler, in the meantime, had evacuated the lobby and was now striding purposefully down the street. However, this turned into a very slow stroll when he realised that he did not, in fact, know his way around Jersey, and he slowed to a halt when he realised that he was, in fact, now lost.
Why did he have to go and be such a jerk like that? She'd already asked him to stop watching the program, which was a totally reasonable thing to do. He could do that at home, and he knew that, he just didn't know why he had gone off like that! He ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly terrified he had just ruined the best thing that had ever happened to him.
It made him want to run and hide at the thought of a relationship, but that didn't mean he was dense enough to ignore the fuzzy feeling he got every time he looked at Monica. Every time their eyes met, briefly, across the room. Every time he held her afterwards, and stroked her hair and smiled like a lunatic at the ceiling. Just every time with her and only her.
He looked up at the sky when a drop of rain splashed onto his forehead, seeing the dense blackness above closing in above the high rise office buildings.
The sound of music rushed up the street with the next wind towards Chandler. Having no clue where else he could go, he followed the jumping music to a bar near the end of the street, set back a little from the pavement and seemingly the only sign of life for miles around. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he thought of the stupid fight again.
They may have been sleeping together since London, he thought, but they were still best friends. He had Joey and Monica had Rachel, but him and Monica had always had that bond. He told her everything, she told him everything. She always laughed at his jokes (even if she wasn't that good at faking), and he had always wiped her tears away every time some scumbag broke her heart. He sighed, exasperated, hating to think he was making her hurt right now. He should have just turned the damn TV off.
But he had turned the TV off, hadn't he? And she still had moaned at him. Hadn't she started that argument? He couldn't decide who he should be angry with, so ignoring all his instincts (something he'd been doing his whole life), he went inside, tendrils of smoke escaping through the door and curling into the drizzle.
Monica rolled over into a patch of sunlight moving lazily across her bed. She rubbed her eyes and sleepily thought that she probably wouldn't have been blinded if they had stayed in the ocean view room. Yawning and stretching her arms out, her hand hit nothing but an empty side of the bed.
She dragged herself into a sitting position and a huge ball of guilt sank from her heart to the pit of her stomach. Chandler wasn't next to her. They'd fought, but where on earth would he have stayed all night? She had gone to bed alone but knew (thought she knew) that he'd probably creep back in during the small hours, begging for forgiveness, after having spent a lonely evening in the hotel bar.
But he wasn't here. He wasn't and his luggage was, half unpacked. Controlling the urge to spill the whole thing out on the floor and spend a happy half hour folding and organising and categorising his socks, she shoved the spilt contents back in angrily and started to gather up her own stuff. No point staying here when Chandler had clearly gone home. She guessed she had been wrong about them. Whatever 'them' had been.