The Heartbroken - S01 E194

Story 2 years ago

The Heartbroken - S01 E194

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 194

I wish I had seen it coming, but I hadn’t.

There were no warnings; no precautions, nothing

that could have given me time to prepare for the

strong winds; nothing that could have prevented me

from being stranded in a thunderstorm.

I was travelling unprepared, treading my way

towards a storm named Seth without any

knowledge of what might be waiting for me.

The call was nothing if not brief—short and on-point

and I was yet to distinguish what emotions, if any,

were lying beneath his monotonous voice during the

whole exchange.

“Okay,” I had told him when he asked if we could

meet. Almost unconsciously, I pressed the phone

closer to my ear, afraid I might miss a word.

“Can you meet me at Snowflake?”

It was more a plea than a request, and the note of

desperation in his words made my gut clench.

I could have been overanalyzing things, but I

couldn’t help myself from worrying because I knew

him well enough to know that he always headed to

Snowflake when he was upset.

“I’ll be there in ten,” I replied.

When he ended the call, I immediately made a U-

turn, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling in my

stomach.

I was both excited and scared to face him. We hadn’t

seen each other, at least not for real, for almost a

whole week now, and the idea of talking to him so

soon was something that never really occurred to

me before.

What I didn’t know then, of course, as I got switched

lanes to head back to the town proper, was that I

was heading face-first into a storm without so much

as an umbrella in hand.

—

The word Snowflake was sprawled across the sign

they had out front, illuminated by three light bulbs,

one of which kept flicking on and off. It was hard not

to notice it when I pulled into the parking lot.

I made myself scan the area, looking for Seth’s car,

which wasn’t exactly hard to miss as it was the only

other car in the parking lot.

I spent the whole ride trying to prepare myself to see

him again, trying out possible dialogues in my head

because I was worried I might not be able to say

anything at all. And if there was one thing that had

always been easy between me and Seth, it was

talking.

Our conversations made me feel a kind of comfort

that most people could only get from long-time

friends and the thought of having awkward pauses

with him scared me.

It was the only thing that proved how much we got

along, and if we didn’t have even just that, then we

had nothing, and the thought sent a wave of nausea

washing over me.

I took three deep breaths before turning the engine

off and pushing the car door open. I planted a

slightly shaky foot on the ground, bracing myself for

the conversation waiting for me inside, as I heaved

the rest of my body out of the car.

I pulled my jacket tighter around me as I made my

way across the lot. I paused for a second when I

reached the door, then I took another deep breath

and pushed it open.

It was warmer inside, which made eating a frozen

treat seem kind of counterproductive, and I

immediately let the door swing shut to keep the cold

out.

My eyes gravitated to a table, almost as if I knew he

would be there, and my breath was momentarily

taken away when my eyes met his startling blue

eyes.