Chapter 4 Chapter Four
CANDY’S POV
As far as making friends with my hot neighbor is going? I think I’m failing miserably.
He just keeps looking at me quizzically like I made a mistake trying and when he’s not doing that he’s looking at me like he knows something I don’t. I’ve considered calling it quits countlessly before I embarrass myself even more than my over achieving ass has already but I’ve been a quitter my whole life.
Will it really kill me to hold on this one time, see where it goes?
Slumping into my bed, I scream into the pillow. Maybe it will really kill me to, but I’m just too stubborn to listen to my guts. I’ve done that my whole life and all it’s brought me is pain, enough pain to knock the senses out of my head. Every damn time I think about how everything I’ve stood for, stood by has failed me, I just want to hurt something.
It’s why I need a distraction.
Something, someone, anything to make me forget before it gets too much and I give in to the voices in my head telling me to something drastic.
My phone dings with a new text next to me and I fumble around until I grab it. It’s probably my sister checking in on me for the millionth to make sure I’m still alive. Of all my family members, sweet, little Peach worries the most about me. She’s always been like that but it’s gotten a lot more intense since everything that happened.
Looking at the screen, a small frown takes over my face.
This is a number I don’t recognize.
Skeptically, I open the text and immediately a smile wipes the frown off my face, proudly replacing it. There’s only one person that could have asked the question I’m looking at and it’s starting to fan the embers of my dying hope for something new, something different.
“Someone at the lobby mentioned a hiking trip scheduled for tomorrow morning and I thought maybe I’ll tag along if you’ll go.”
It’s the first unprovoked invitation he’s extended since I went to his room a couple days ago to demand we leave my drunken past in the past where it rightfully belongs and try being friends onwards instead. He’d turned down my invitation to go down for breakfast buffet this morning and I’d taken that as his answer, so this is a pleasant surprise.
Baby steps.
“Sure, see you in the morning.” I text back ignoring the fact that he’d conjured my number out of thin air because I didn’t give it to him yet. Nahhh, I’m sure it doesn’t matter.
The next morning comes with a whirlwind of renewed excitement as my body alarm dutifully wakes me up by five minutes past five. It doesn’t care that I don’t have to go to work or have any important appointment to catch, it just does it out of habit now. Begrudgingly though,, I must admit this is the first night I’ve slept through in a long while now without struggling with my anxiety inspired nightmares.
See what I was talking about, this distraction is good for me and I plan to milk every bit of it.
Rummaging through my bag, I pull out the clothes I’d packed for hiking when coming. I’d read on the hotel’s attraction review that this place offered one of the best hike trips and I’d packed for it on a whim, but my depression had gotten the best of me as soon as I got here and erased all that plan from my mind until I was left a blank slate and a hollow husk.
Ignoring the pinch in my chest, I go into the shower for a quick, stinging bath before coming back to start getting ready.
I throw on my boring, black, polyester running shorts because I’ve always favored it against pants. It’s comfy and allows for more flexibility and that’s something I’m going to need if I’m going to survive this God-knows-how-far-to-the-top hike. I’m not in the best shape like I used to be to start with so I’m relying heavily on my wits and my stubbornness to get by.
I put on my more comfortable, also black sports bra and almost immediately, I notice the cups of it has become slightly smaller than my boobs since the last time I wore it. I knew I should have laid off all the sugar I was binge eating to manage my grief but I didn’t and this is the result. Ughhh!
I contemplate changing it but the only other option I have is the death trap that is my regular bras and there’s no way in hell I’m putting myself through that, not today. Settling, I throw on my jacket and shoes and the rest of my gear for this including a couple of granola bars for snacking.
Oh please, don’t judge me.
At exactly seventeen minutes past seven, I join the small crowd that had gathered in front of the hotel listening half heartedly to the guide as he went through the routine rules. I search for my neighbor in the crowd and it’s not long before I spot him standing off to the side, a head taller than everyone else in the group.
My eyes meet his as he’s apparently found me first and was already doing that thing he does with his eyes where it feels like he’s seeing through my skin to my soul. He cracks a small smile as I approach him catching me off guard. I smile back, my guts feeling funny.
Good but not good.
“I didn’t know if you were coming.” He says casually.
“Told you I needed to get out more. There’s no way I was going to miss it.”
“That’s good.” His voice drones over the instructor’s announcing that we’re starting now.
We join the group in comfortable silence, letting the chatters from the other hikers fill in the gap. The trail is nice and the scenery right from the start is beautiful. The undisturbed echo system with shrubs and trees flanking the trail and pretty, colorful flowers dotting the paths all makes it a worthy view. It’s breathtakingly different from the city I’ve been stuck in for years living a clockwork life.
“You’re beaming.” He says like it’s such a surprising thing.
“Everything is so pretty out here.” I shrug.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
But he wasn’t looking at the scenery, he was looking right at me when he said that and then he looked away like it was nothing. How can he do that so casually?
Of course it’s not nothing!
God help me because this man is playing with me and I’ll be damned because I like it.