#4 month old leo yelled at my mom while she was walking the dogs

[histskins]

people often wonder why we adopted 6 entire cats but the answer is we did not adopt the cats. the cats adopted us the cats decided they live here now

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 31

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation, pt 4/?

A/N: Soo sorry about the long wait! This was a very long and kind of tricky chapter to write so it took me longer than I would have wanted. But in a way this is (ironically) a good day to post this chapter as it's the Mother's day in many parts of the world today. (Happy Mother’s day Esperanza Valdez ;___;)

Before we head into this chapter, I want to give you guys a warning that it (specifically, the flashback in the beginning of the chapter) talks about what happened to Leo's mother, so in case you find that too hard to read, feel free to skip it. (If you have read HoO, I think you can somewhat guess what to expect)

Thanks for all the amazing support you guys have given me so far! ♥ It's what keeps me going! Now, enjoy, and remember that I'd really like to hear what you think because there's a lot going on in this chapter!

Words: 5550 (yeah, long one)

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: minor character death (talked about), be aware!

previous chapter / AO3

*flashback*

There was fire. So much fire.

Leo had been tinkering with his toy tools and drawing some simple blueprints in the living room when he had remembered that he had left his hammer into his room. He went to look for it and it took him a couple of minutes to locate it from under the unfinished toys and papers he had thrown around. Unfortunately, that couple of minutes had been enough for all hell to break loose in the living room.

He started smelling smoke and ran back downstairs to see where it came from. The wooden floor and several pieces of furniture in the living room were on fire, which seemed to have started from the papers he had left near the fireplace. Leo’s mind went completely blank like a machine that had just been shut down. The only thing that he was capable of thinking was: what do I do?

His mother had put a fire in the fireplace before she had left to run some errands because it had been a cold day. She had warned Leo several times to be careful with it, even putting a bucket of water and a smothering blanket nearby in case of emergency. But it was already too late to use them; the fire had already spread too far in the room. Because of his state of panic, it took Leo a while to manage to make decisions, but finally, his brain told him: get your phone so you can call mom, and run.

What his 8-year-old brain didn’t understand: he should have just left the building right then and asked a neighbor or someone to call the fire department instead. But Leo could only think how the very thing his mother had been worried about just happened and how she’d probably never forgive him for – no matter how accidentally – burning their home. He had vague memories of leaving his cell phone that he had gotten a few months earlier on his birthday into his room, so he ran upstairs as quickly as he could with his short, wobbly legs. However, the phone wasn’t on his desk like he had anticipated, and it took him a while to remember he had thrown it under the bed after getting frustrated with his homework; the words on the textbook they were supposed to read had not made any sense to him.

Once he finally found the cell phone and went back downstairs to leave the building, the fire had already spread so much that he could barely see anything from the smoke. Coughing, he tried to cover his mouth with his shirt so he could protect himself from the smoke and dash to the door, but he soon realized it was not possible. His road was blocked, and the only way for him to get out would be through the upstairs windows.

Leo didn’t have the time to figure out how to open the windows so he ended up breaking his bedroom window with a real hammer that he happened to find nearby. Shaking, breathing heavily and trying to avoid the glass shards, he looked down. The fall would be quite big, at least 5-6 meters, but he was no stranger to broken bones. The fights with other school kids had taught him a thing or two about that. He would still be more likely to survive the fall than trying to go out from downstairs; at least there were no stones or other hard objects under the window. He was so full of adrenaline that he didn’t even notice that his hands were bleeding; they had hit the broken glass when he had peeked out.

Finally, he managed to gain enough courage to climb up the windowsill and lift one of his legs over the edge. In the process he scraped himself some more in the glass and tore his pants a bit as well, but who cared? It was a very minor thing compared to his mother’s face if she’d find him dead in the house. For a moment Leo thought about all the blueprints and devices in development in the basement of the house, how hours and hours of his mother’s work would go to waste if the entire house burned down – but that was a thing to worry about for later. It was already too late to do anything but to try to escape.

With a huge lump in his throat as he imagined how his mother would hate him when she’d find out about the fire, Leo finally lifted his other leg over the edge as well, sitting on the windowsill with his legs hanging in the air. The distance between him and the ground seemed even bigger than it had earlier, but he had to do this. Slowly, he inched himself forward, hesitating a bit more, but the sound of the fire breaking something downstairs startled him and finally, he dropped down.

After that his memories started getting hazy. He fainted when hitting the ground and when he first woke up he noticed the pain in his left ankle and some blood coming from his forehead. He was laying on the grass, not unharmed but at least alive, and suddenly he got aware that he had to get farther from the house because the fire could easily spread to the surrounding grounds. He could only hope that a neighbor or a passerby had already called the fire department because he himself would not be able to do that, not with his dizzy head and the pain everywhere in his body. Before he passed out again, his last thought was: when would his mother be back?

The next time he was conscious, he remembered trying to drag himself forward with his hands. He could not stand up, and not even crawl, so that was the only thing he could do. Inch by inch, he got a bit farther from his falling spot, and by that time he also started hearing some distant sirens and human yells somewhere, but his mind could not comprehend what all of it meant.

After that, the next thing he remembered was being lifted from the ground by a first responder. The man tried to tell him soothing words, probably something like ‘poor child, it will be alright’, but Leo didn’t care. He wished the fogginess of his brain would just fade so he could speak and walk on his own feet and find out what happened to his mother – if she returned yet – but afterwards, he wished he would have never found out.

He kept slipping in and out of consciousness for a while, not really sure what was happening around him, until finally he woke up in the hospital. One of his legs and arms had been plastered and a bandage had been wrapped around his head. Already he wished he could have just ripped them off and run away but he knew that wasn’t possible. A couple of minutes later, a nurse finally arrived at his bedside.

“Oh, good, I’m glad you’re awake,” she said, testing his forehead to see if he had a fever. “You scared us there, young one.”

“It’s not me you should be worried about! Where’s my mom?! Hasn’t anyone told her I am here?” Leo demanded in a hoarse voice.

The nurse ignored his question. “Now, what is your name?”

“Leo Valdez,” he answered grumpily, glaring at the nurse.

“Good. How old are you?” the woman asked then.

“8 years. But how does that have anything to do with anything? I want my mom here!”

“Calm down, Mr. Valdez. We are just doing some routine tests. You hit your head pretty badly. Now, do you remember your home address?”

Leo, despite still feeling quite dizzy, got really angry about the question. “Yes, I do, but it doesn’t matter! There’s probably nothing left of it anymore! Because it burned down!” The tears finally demanded to get out of his system as he added with a tiny voice: “And I don’t know where my mom is.”

The nurse looked very hesitant for a moment. “I, um… You know, I think we are gonna complete this test a bit later. There are some people who have been wanting to see you.” She looked towards the door restlessly.

“Is it mom?” Leo asked instantly.

The nurse just shook her head. “You’ll see soon.”

She let the visitors in and left the room, closing the door behind her. Leo found himself staring at a firefighter, who he vaguely recognized as the same one who had carried him to safety after his fall. With him entered a police officer whom Leo had not seen before. Why would a police officer want to meet him, he wondered. Maybe they’d sentence him to prison for burning the house down?

“It was an accident!” Leo blurted before the men had time to say anything, trying to look brave even though he had just cried.

“We know, we know,” the firefighter tried to calm him down. “That’s not why we are here. We wanted to see how you were doing, and, um…” he looked helplessly at his companion.

“We have some bad news,” the police officer went straight to the topic.

“Is it about the house?” Leo asked.

“No, it’s about your mother… she’s gone.”

It took Leo a moment to register what the police officer had said.

“What?” he yelled.

“I’m sorry, but she is dead.”

Leo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was already so panicked that denial was his only coping mechanism left. “Again, what?”

“It is true, young man,” the police officer stated matter-of-factly.

“But she can’t be! She wasn’t even home…!” Leo squeaked, trying to make sense of the situation in his blurry, shocked mind.

The firefighter spoke this time. “I’m so sorry, son… but he’s not lying. We found her in your house. The neighbor who called us had seen her go in before we arrived, and… when we got there… it was already too late.”

“But… but…” Leo had a very hard time getting any words out at that moment. “Why… why would she go in…? And… why didn’t anyone stop her?”

Again the visitors hesitated before answering. “This is just what we heard from a couple of witnesses, but… it seems like she had gone in to… look for you…”

Leo wished the sweet unconsciousness had returned to him in that moment, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it felt like something tried to pull his heart out of his chest. His mind was going through about a hundred different things at the same time: grief, anger, denial… and perhaps above everything else, guilt. It was his fault. It was his fault that the house had burned, and it was his fault that his mother had gone into the burning house. If he had been there to warn her… if she had known… But no, he had had to jump from upstairs to the backyard from where he had been harder to find. And then he had, only half conscious, dragged himself to a nearby trench where the humidity had protected him, being even harder to spot unless you happened to walk right next to it.

That meant that his mother had gone into the house thinking he was there… and she had died thinking he had died. All because he hadn’t listened to her, because he had left some papers on which he had been drawing too near the fireplace.

‘My fault. All my fault’, was all Leo could hear in his head on repeat. He noticed that the firefighter was trying to say something, but he could not register what. Leo didn’t ask him to repeat what he had said. Instead, he stuttered with a weak voice:

“You didn’t answer my other question. Why… didn’t anyone… stop her?”

The police officer sighed sadly. “From what we know, your neighbors had tried to tell her to not go in, that there was nothing she could do, but she refused to listen. The… smoke had already suffocated her by the time we arrived.”

Leo clenched his small fists, unable to focus his gaze anywhere. Everything around him was just a meaningless blur. All of a sudden, nothing mattered to him anymore. With his mother, Leo hadn’t just lost the most important person in his life, the only person who had ever really cared about him and understood him. He had lost his home, his safety, everything that he had loved. More to himself than to the men in the room, he sobbed:

“What's going to happen to me?”

And then everything went blank.

*end flashback*

…

When Leo woke up, he noticed he was breathing very sharply. He had to tell himself to slow it down a bit, trying to focus on the breathing instead of the dream he had just seen. Once he had calmed down a bit, he realized his face was soaked from the tears. The good feeling from the day before was gone, and suddenly he remembered all too well why he hated that holiday so much. His mother had died on Christmas day, 11 years ago.

The worst part about the nightmare he had just seen? It had actually happened. Sure, the details might have changed in Leo’s mind a bit because he had been so young when his mother had died, but most of it was true. The fire, the jumping, the people in the hospital, all true. When he had still been a kid, he had dared to hope that maybe someday the memories would start fading and it wouldn’t hurt so much. But now, 11 years later, he knew better. Thanks to the therapy and Jo, Emmie and the friends’ help, he did have moments when he managed to feel happy, focus on the future and forget the pain for a time being, but when it came back, it was always as intense. And it was especially bad on Christmas days, the anniversary of those horrific events.

‘Pull yourself together’, Leo told himself. ‘This is not what your mother would have wanted for you.’

‘No’, another, the evil voice in his head said. ‘But then again, if it weren’t for you, she would still be here.’

He groaned at himself and decided that it would be better to get himself up and moving rather than lay there listening to the voices. Sitting up, he combed his fingers through his messy hair in an attempt to tame it, with little success. After that, he wiped the tears from his face, trying to pretend it had never happened. Registering the voices coming from the living room, he figured some of his family members were already awake even though it was still rather early. They, especially Georgina, were lucky that they didn’t know what was going through in his head that day; it would have ruined everyone’s Christmas.

Trying to pull himself together and put on a happy face, he got up and washed his face in the bathroom quickly before joining the family. The moment he reached the bottom of the stairs, Georgina ran to him and hugged him.

“Merry Christmas, hermano!”

Leo patted her hair absentmindedly, thinking that Georgina was now only a year older than he had been when… no, he had to stop thinking about it. If not for anyone else’s sake, then Georgina’s. She deserved to have a happy day.

“Merry Christmas to you too, hermanita. Well, did Santa visit? Did he receive my memo on your behavior towards me this year?”

Georgina pulled away from him and folded his arms. “I’m not a little baby anymore; I know Santa doesn’t actually exist. But we did get presents! Even you, although I was kind of surprised about that.”

Leo clutched his shirt. “Ouch, Georgie! I thought you were on my side!”

The siblings continued bickering playfully as they waited for the others. They had a tradition in their house that everyone needed to be there for the present opening. Soon Josephine appeared with a tray full of coffee cups, gingerbread cookies and certain small pies she used to bake every Christmas.

“Where are the others?” Georgina asked impatiently as she started stuffing the cookies into her mouth and drummed her legs against the sofa. “I want to open the presents already!”

“Calm down, Georgie,” Jo scolded her. “Emmie is checking the cats and dogs because they also need care on Christmas day, and Calypso may still be sleeping.”

“Ugh, I told her I wanna start opening the presents early!” Georgina protested. “I’ll go wake her up if she isn’t here in 10 minutes!”

“You’ll wake who up?” Calypso showed up from the stairway. Hearing her voice and seeing her face, Leo forgot for a moment why he had been so upset earlier. Somehow her presence just had that weird effect on him. She was wearing a green holiday sweater knitted by Annabeth over her pajamas – pink with some small flower prints – and her hair was flying freely, slightly wavy because of the braids that Georgie had insisted on making the previous evening. Somehow even that casual look made her look adorable in his eyes and his throat felt dry for entirely different reasons than a few minutes earlier. Leo almost missed Calypso’s next words due to his distraction. “Sorry that you had to wait, Georgina. I was finishing up one last present because I wasn’t entirely happy with it.”

“No worries!” Georgina exclaimed. Apparently the last minute gift preparing was a good enough reason to be late in her books, because Leo knew that if he had been late for the gift opening, the little girl wouldn’t have forgiven that easily.

Calypso put her pile of neatly packed presents under the tree to wait and turned to the others.

“So, merry Christmas, everyone! If I am allowed to be honest with you, I don’t really know a lot about Christmas traditions… My family never celebrated it… But I want to learn!”

“We’ll teach you,” Georgina told her immediately. “It’s gonna be so much fun, you’ll see!”

Leo wished he himself could have been as enthusiastic about the holiday as Georgina was, but tried to keep the happy face on anyway.

“Cal, try some of those pies before Georgie has eaten them all.” He pointed to the tray Jo had brought. Calypso glanced at him suspiciously for a moment. “Don’t give me that look; I swear I didn’t make them. It’s all Jo and Emmie.”

“Fine,” Calypso agreed and took a bite. “This is really good!” she exclaimed once her mouth was empty.

“Told you. Now do you trust me?” Leo asked her teasingly.

“Hmmm. That’s still to be determined,” Calypso replied, but Leo could see her smile into her piece of pie.

As everyone waited for Emmie to return inside, they kept up a light banter as they ate their Christmas breakfast in the living room. Even Leo did his best to participate in it, and soon he did feel a bit better, although if someone had looked at him more closely, they would have noticed the smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes.

Finally, Emmie arrived together with Festus and Georgina instantly pulled her towards the Christmas tree so they could start the gift sharing. A grin spread across Leo’s face as well when he watched the little girl run back and forth as she delivered the packages to their rightful owners. This was now, he tried to remind himself. What happened in the past… was in the past and his mother would probably have wanted him to enjoy these moments.

Not that he’d ever know that for sure, the nasty voice in Leo’s head said again, and the grin almost disappeared from his face.

To no one’s surprise, Georgina got the most presents because even some family friends and neighbors had sent her something (that’s what happened when she got everyone wrapped around her finger, Leo thought), but everyone else got their fair share of self made gifts as well. Leo noticed that Calypso had three packages; one from him, one from Georgina who had insisted on making her own present, and one from Jo and Emmie. He found himself wishing she’d like what he had made; he had spent quite a lot of time on it.

Before anyone could start ripping their wrapping papers off the presents, Festus was given some treats so he wouldn’t interrupt the gift opening too much. Georgina got the privilege of getting to open hers first. She chuckled at Leo’s jokes in the photo album, which Leo took as a success, and squealed excitedly at the tiny dragon toy he had carved from wood and painted. Calypso had sewed her a detailed gryphon plushie, because Leo had told her that Georgina had recently gotten interested in the mythical creatures, a topic Calypso knew a lot about. The little girl hugged the plushie enthusiastically while Calypso promised her to tell her more about the Greek mythology later when they’d have more time. Emmie gave Georgie a tiny beginning of a plant that she’d get to raise on her own, and Jo, the practical person that she was, gave her a pocket knife for tinkering with a warning that she’d only get to use it under her supervision.

Leo and Calypso allowed Jo and Emmie to open their presents next. It was mostly practical stuff, like woolly socks, self made chocolate, and new tools (which broke the ‘homemade’ rule but Leo knew Jo needed them), but Leo had also tinkered frames for a photo of the Waystation family and asked Calypso to decorate it with her paints. The final result looked pretty good in his opinion.

Next was Calypso’s turn. Georgina had attempted to crochet a potholder for her because Leo had guiltily admitted that he may have accidentally ruined one of Calypso’s potholders while cooking something. However, since she was still a beginner in the handicrafts, the potholder had some room for improvement, but Leo could see from Calypso’s happy face that she appreciated the gesture. Leo had also told his mothers that Calypso really loved her flowers, so they gave her a white orchid in a pot that Jo had once crafted. Finally, she opened the gift Leo had made for her. He was biting his lip and tapping his fingers nervously even though he tried to act nonchalant as he watched Calypso’s reaction. Before she removed the paper, she knocked on the surface of the gift, trying to guess what was in it.

“Is this a tool box? So you could borrow mine when you lose yours?” She teased.

“Well, at least that would be useful, don’t you think? But hold your horses; it’s probably not what you think it is,” Leo hinted. Calypso gave him a quizzical look and Leo took that as a sign that she really had no idea what the gift was.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she noted and started carefully removing the paper. Unlike Georgina, she made sure that the paper would still be usable on some later occasion. Calypso wasn’t entirely wrong with her guess; the gift was indeed a box of sorts. But it wasn’t for tools. Instead, it was a jewelry box; wooden, self made, painted rose pink, which happened to be Calypso’s favorite color. When she opened it, she noticed a small mirror on the lid with some text on it. The box also played one of those few songs that they both happened to like. Calypso traced her finger on the smooth surface of the box for a moment before she noticed that there was still something more in the box: a silvery bracelet with a letter C hanging from it. She took it into her hands and admired it for a moment before reading aloud the text that had been written on the mirror:

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.”

“Um, yeah…” Leo was unsure how he should respond. Suddenly he got worried he had been too straightforward with that message, and Calypso wouldn’t appreciate it. “It was a quote, um, that I happened to stumble upon somewhere recently… But I thought it was quite fitting?”

Calypso looked at him straight into the eyes and for a moment Leo managed to forget that there were others in the room. It was as if she was trying to message him wordlessly that she understood the meaning of the quote.

“Yes, I think it works,” she replied slowly. “For both of us.”

Leo felt his ears getting heated and attempted to comb his hair over them with his fingers to not make it so painfully obvious. Given what day it was, he understood that it was ironic he was using that quote when he himself was struggling to let go from his past.

“True,” he had to admit, looking at the others nervously from the corner of his eye. “It’s… it’s something that we both should try to remember. Something we have in common, right?”

Calypso seemed to accept his explanation. “Right. Um, this box is really beautiful. You’ve seen a lot of trouble with it. The music and all… It’s really nice. Did you even make this bracelet?”

Even though Leo should have prepared himself for that question, he felt embarrassed to reveal the bracelet’s origins, afraid it might sound too sentimental. He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat to get more time to consider his answer.

“The… the chain was from an old bracelet my mom had… My biological mom, I mean. I didn’t get to keep a lot of her belongings but this had survived… and my dear aunt didn’t want to keep it so I’ve been carrying it around as a charm of some sort. But the thing is, I don’t really need it so it was Jo’s suggestion that I could give it to someone who’d use it. She helped me make this,” he showed the C, “because I don’t really…”

“Want to forge anything,” Calypso finished for him. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Good. If you don’t like it, you can give it to someone else; I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind…”

Calypso gave him an encouraging smile. “Oh, no! This bracelet meant a lot to you so it means a lot to me. It’s a really nice gesture, Leo.”

“You’re welcome?” he replied, kind of flustered by her reaction.

Calypso fiddled with the gift for a moment before turning her attention back to Leo.

“Would you like to put this on my wrist? I’d like to see how it fits.”

“Oh… alright!” Leo agreed, wishing he could say something that didn’t make him sound like a complete idiot. But then again, he reminded himself, wasn’t that what most people thought of him? And since when had he cared?

Calypso handed the bracelet to him and Leo took a very light hold of her wrist, as if afraid that he’d burn her skin with his hot fingers. He was so focused on his task that he even forgot that it was technically against the ‘rules’ they had set, but Calypso had initiated it so who was he to deny her request? He put the chain around her wrist with fumbling fingers and closed the lock. After that he allowed his hand to stay around hers a moment longer. He swiped the surface of the chain with his finger, also touching the back of her hand by accident (or maybe on purpose). Calypso looked up from their hands to him with a surprisingly soft expression that he hadn’t seen since that day when they had promised each other to try harder to be ‘just friends’. His brain sent sparks through his spine and he felt very warm all of a sudden.

“I… um… it seems to fit, doesn’t it?” he finally stuttered, looking down at the bracelet, Calypso’s gaze still lingering in his mind. He let her wrist go and already his hand felt much colder, as if it was missing something.

“Oh, yeah,” Calypso nodded, absentmindedly fiddling with the chain of the bracelet. “It’s small enough that it won’t fall but it’s not too small.”

“Good,” Leo said, a smile returning to his face. “Guess you’re just as tiny as my mom was.” He finally managed to bring out his more playful side.

“Have you looked into the mirror lately, Mister Super-Sized McShizzle? You’re not exactly a giant yourself,” Calypso teased back.

Georgina giggled at her response. “You tell him, Calie!”

“This Georgina here, though,” Leo grinned at her, “she must really have some giant blood in her. She uses my overalls in the garage sometimes!”

“I do not,” Georgina denied quickly. “They’re stinky.”

“Yeah? And you smell like flowers and rainbows,” Leo retorted and started tickling the little girl.

For a moment Leo was able to forget that he hated Christmas as he played with Georgina, but then someone reminded him that he still had to open his own presents. He looked at the pile he had gotten and thought briefly that he had gotten more of them than what he had expected. Georgina had drawn him a picture of him with Festus and sewed him a simple pencil case for his blueprint pencils. Jason and Piper had gotten him a book about weird mechanics facts. Percy had sent him a new orange t-shirt so Leo could return him the one that he had once borrowed after a workout (which, according to Percy, was ‘way too big for him anyway’). Leo’s moms had made him an awesome tool case where even the bigger tools would fit and baked some of his favorite goodies. Finally, it was the turn for Calypso’s present, though.

“What do you think it is?” Calypso asked, glancing at him curiously.

“My first guess would have been a pack of olives because you know how much I love those things… But this doesn’t feel like them. It’s mostly soft but there are some hard parts too. Maybe a bit like a backpack?"

“That wasn’t a half bad guess,” Calypso responded. “But I won’t tell you the correct answer; you can figure it out on your own.” She invited Leo to open the present.

“Okie, Sunshine, will do.”

He ripped the paper (which was Leo’s favorite shade of red) off notably less gracefully than Calypso had done with her presents, but his mouth opened involuntarily when he saw what was inside. It was a toolbelt, not looking like one of those belts that broke in his use after the first couple of days (Leo had a habit to load them too full sometimes), but sturdy, well made. Leo wondered where she had obtained the leather she had used in it, and hoped that it hadn’t cost her too much money. The belt had four different sized pockets for the tools and it seemed like one of them had something in it, but before Leo checked what was inside, he turned to Calypso:

“How did you know I needed one of these?”

“Probably because you’ve been carrying wrenches and stuff in your jean pockets and I’ve also seen your room and that’s enough for me to be able to tell you need a place for your tools,” Calypso smirked. Leo barely heard her answer. He didn’t want to admit aloud that one of the reasons why he was suddenly feeling so sentimental about a tool belt was because it reminded him a lot of the one his mom had made for him when he was a kid. “I hope this wasn’t too much trouble…” He noted more quietly than usual.

“It was not trouble at all,” Calypso reassured him. “I have sewed more difficult things. The leather was actually from one of my old bags that my dad got for me – which I hated – so I didn’t even have to buy a lot of the materials. Besides, you yourself made this,” she knocked the wooden cover of the jewelry box, “and I bet it was a lot more difficult.”

“Nah, it wasn’t…” Leo tried to protest and he noticed the others in the room had a hard time keeping their faces straight as they listened to the flatmates competing whose present had taken more time. “The music was probably the most complicated part.”

“Okay,” Calypso said, deciding to leave the debate there. “Hey, I forgot to mention that there is something small in one of the pockets. You could check it out now.”

“Alright, I will,” Leo told her. He reached out to the said pocket and found a small box from it. His smile instantly disappeared from his face when he realized what it was. Everyone went quiet for a while as they were waiting for his reaction.

“Why would you give me matches, especially today of all days?” He lifted his gaze from the box, his eyes sparkling angrily. Before anyone could say anything, he threw the box away and jumped up from his seat. Calypso’s sad face was the last thing he saw before storming out of the room.

[jihypedforjihope]

Remember the girl I already complained about twice on here? Well I finally came to the realization that I don’t deserve to be treated like that (aka like shit). I’ve chosen for myself and my own happiness and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.

For context, I’ve known this girl (let’s call her Leo) for 4 years now, we met through uni cause we’re majoring in the same thing, we lived together for one year and now we have been living in the same building since February. Leo and I have always had a very toxic friendship but I didn’t realize it until a couple months ago. She’s manipulative and I don’t think she liked it when I made other friends. Because of this I have no social life in the city I’m currently living at (which is 2,5 hours away from my family by train). But I guess that had been Leo’s intention cause as long as I didn’t have any one else here I would have to stay with her. I made one other good friend here and she got driven away by Leo. She actually warned me two years ago that the friendship me and Leo had was unhealthy and toxic and I wish I would’ve listened to her cause she was fucking right. I miss her but I’m thinking of reaching out to her soon to see if she wants to get coffee with me.

Now for the shitshow that finally made me decide I don’t want to do this anymore. Two weeks ago I had to babysit Leo’s dog and cat cause she had to go home. I was already a bit apprehensive about this because I have a dog and a cat myself and the place I live at isn’t that big, definitely not big enough for 4 pets. Leo made me feel like I would be the shittiest friend ever if I didn’t do this for her so I agreed in the end. It was the worst two days of my life, I called my mom crying like 5 times. Her dog is a 7 month old German shepherd puppy and he hasn’t been trained that well. So when he came over he wouldn’t leave my own dog (a 9 month old stray dog) alone, he wanted to play the entire time but Leo never taught him when he’s biting too hard, my dog was yelping and bleeding within half an hour of the other dog being here. I was hoping that if I went for a long walk with them they would be tired enough to fall asleep after a while. Nope, little German shepherd doesn’t get walked a lot when he’s at home so my long walk just made him even more excited. Walking him is also a hell cause he’s really strong and stubborn and I’m not that big. This resulted in me getting pulled over and falling at least 6 times, once down the stairs. Now I’ve had dogs since I was like 13 and I watch a lot of Cesar Milan so I know this isn’t the dogs fault but the owner but my god I thought of hurting an animal for the first time in my life (I didn’t of course). To make matters worse this dog! doesn’t! shut! up! ever! He was squeaking and yelling all the time, to the point I had to apologize to the people living on my floor!

After the two days of hell, which ended in blood, sweat, many tears and a broken vase I decided to let Leo know that I wasn’t gonna be able to do this ever again. I send her a message explaining why I wouldn’t be able to do it again. A message in which I never put blame on her or her animals. All she could focus on was the fact that I apparently don’t think she raised her dog properly and told another friend of ours (I didn’t say it in those words, I just complained to that friend about the hell I went through the past two days). Now I apologized for that cause im not a bitch. BUT ITS NEVER ENOUGH FOR HER. I explained my side of the story, I apologized, I told her 5 times that I didn’t say it like that, let her know that it hurt me that I apparently can’t say anything to our mutual friend without her immediately telling Leo. But I’m the one in the wrong according to her cause I never apologized and just got mad at her. I didn’t get mad at all. I got mad at the end of our convo cause this is the shit she always does. Every single time we have an argument, it’s a hundred percent my fault, I get mad at her and don’t listen to her side and never apologize. Which isn’t true at all, she always blames everything on me, says it’s “whatever” when I apologize and then ignores me for a full week. I wasn’t gonna put up with that this time. So I told her that that’s what she always does to me and she just accused me of always making everything about me and that I don’t care about her feelings. It’s literally the other way around but oh well. We weren’t getting out of this argument without me saying sorry and letting her walk all over me again. But I said nah fuck that. I told her it might be better for us to not be friends for a little while, she agreed.

It’s now two weeks later, she hasn’t said a word to me other than to tell me she (finally) paid the money back she borrowed from me. Today I decided to unfollow and unfriend her on all my social media accounts and I couldn’t be happier. I feel like a huge weight has lifted of my chest. It sucks that I don’t know anyone in this city but I’m excited to get back to uni in September and make new friends. Until then I have my dog and my cat to keep me company and I don’t need anything else.