Out of the Path

KYLE

Jayden dashed his helmet on the ground, his face red with fury. "You're being a horrible girlfriend right now, did you know?'' he roared.

Stey brought her hands to her hips and glared back at him. "Excuse me?" she started, "But how exactly am I doing that?" Taking a step forward, Jayden didn't seem like he was going to give up. Adorned entirely in black, with his long, plaited blond hair pulled back into a man-bun, he looked like a thug you would definitely avoid, especially when one rode on a motorbike, spray painted with skulls and fine tuned. Kyle, standing beside Stey couldn't help but shake inwardly a bit, clearly nervous, but the latter stood erect with no sign of distress or fear written on her face. Well he was her boyfriend, she wouldn't really be afraid of him now, Kyle thought, genuinely surprised.

"By ditching me to go to the movies with some other dude, that's how," Jayden snapped.

"Right!" Stey threw her arms up wildly, "Of course you haven't met Kyle," she rolled her eyes and turned to Kyle, "My one good friend who hangs around with me all the time, meet my Most Frustrating boyfriend, Jayden."

"How do you do, Jayden?" Kyle asked, extending a hand innocently. If Kyle had hoped for a handshake he was mistaken, for Jayden simply looked at his hand as if he were contemplating if he should cut it and feed it to a dozen hungry dogs, watching which would bite through it first. Kyle shuddered inwardly and hastily pocketed his cold hand; even though he was intimidated by Stey's thuggish boyfriend he wasn't going to show it if he could.

As Kyle stood by, watching the couple fighting, Jayden turned his attention back to the short girl wearing a straight black pencil skirt, that matched her black hair, with a blue turtleneck beneath a white jacket. To protect herself from the cold weather she had tied on a black scarf with blue stars on it- Kyle knew that Stey had painted the stars on it herself; he had awarded her a 100% for effort but only 5% for a job well done. The stars were painted on terribly.

"Wait, hold on," Jayden said, "How am I the frustrating one here?"

Stey stomped her foot on the ground and exclaimed, "You're not letting me BREATH, Jayden! You want to know where I am every second of the day, what I'm doing every hour, I mean can't u just-"

Jayden growled and took a heavy footstep forward for every word he said next. "I. AM. YOUR. BOYFRIEND," he thundered. Kyle couldn't help but flinch at how scary he looked. "I'm supposed to know where you are all the time and what you are doing."

"Say's who? The law?"

"Its what a boyfriend does, you fool."

"Its what a Stalker does, you- you bigger fool," Stey retorted.

Kyle couldn't help the words that left his mouth, "'Bigger' fool', really Stey?" he chuckled. Sometimes he couldn't help but realize how dumb his best friend was.

Jayden glared at him, before inhaling deeply trying to calm himself down but Stey, who had already started, was on full roll. "A boyfriend doesn't have to be any certain way, Jayden Miller. A boyfriend is supposed to do what his girl wants him to- not to follow her around to every place she goes to, every place she hangs around in; because what you are doing, is that you're hovering around me and its sickening," at the last word Stey hit her right foot on the ground hard, visibly raging.

Kyle leaned his back against the wall of the movie theater they had come to. They had only gone through thirty minutes of the movie before two security guards entered the theater and informed them of a "friend" of theirs who had been causing a scene outside and request that they "kindly" be brought out of the cinema. Since he knew what was headed towards Jayden, he pitied him; soon enough Jayden wouldn't be a 'friend' either.

"It's "sickening"?" Jayden seemed stunned by the term his girlfriend used to describe him. Kyle couldnt help but hide a smile, for it was not everyday that a thug like Jayden who fed on others' misery, was startled in public. "It is," Stey nodded firmly, folding her arms across her chest, not seeming to care that she had hurt him- for Kyle realized she had done exactly that.

Jayden was at a loss for words.

"You should reconsider what you are to me, Jayden- a boyfriend or a stalker," Stey suggested to him, shifting the weight of her leg from her left to the right.

"I dont have to reconsider anything."

"Then chose," Stey demanded, "Chose if you will be my boyfriend or my stalker."

"This is a joke," Jayden muttered, enraged. "How dare you-"

"I am not joking. Get it into your thick skull-"

Jayden took a hefty step towards her, his arms raised as if he wanted to strangle her but Stey didnt flinch- which made Kyle wonder how many times exactly did she piss her boyfriend off. He made a mental note to never consider dating Stey.

"If I chose boyfriend I can never be around you but if I say stalker, I can but I have to break up with you?" Jayden chuckled crazily and Kyle almost wondered if Stey really had made him go insane. The latter sighed, shifting her weight once more back and forth, as if impatient for his answer, but he knew different; she was upset. She was usually quite silent and timid in public places, so to see her yelling outside a movie theater did surprise him.

Then again, Kyle thought, her choice of boyfriend being such a jerk did surprise me too. Something dramatic always happened to him when Stey was around, although it wasnt entirely her fault.

"Jayden-" Stey started, but he cut her off. "Fine."

Stey froze.

"We're done. I'm leaving."

Stey stood speechless watching Jayden as he picked up his helmet and trudged over to his bike, as if exhausted- which Kyle was quite sure he was, his back turned to her not once looking back. He revved off in his black leather jacket under the pale winter sky, leaving his now ex-girlfriend silently in his dust.

Kyle took his hands out of his pocket and walked over to his best friend whose lower lip had begun trembling. "Going to cry?"

"Shut up, Kyle. Not a word or I'll kill you."

Smirking, Kyle puth his arms around her shoulders to protect her from the cold. "Your options are terrible sometimes, you know?" Stey sighed and leaned against him embracing the warmth. "I do know."

"You have a bad habit of speaking before you think."

"Dont we all," Stey admitted grudgingly.

"Yes, but-"

"Get lost, Kyle. You're not helping," she scolded, pushing his arms away. She walked away from him, growling under her breath. "Where do you want me to get lost to?" he called out. "Home?" she suggested, turning around and shrugging.

"You were the one who dragged me out of bed to watch a movie," Kyle complained in amusement.

"And now I'm sending you back to bed," Stey stated. She waved him off gesturing at him to leave soon. Kyle frowned but waved back and walked off, doing as he was told, leaving the large theater silent and alone in the snow with brightly lit streetlamps around it.

They headed in opposite directions, away from each other, back to their own lives.

STEY

Stey didnt realize how fast the time had flown since she had departed from the movie theater leaving her friend, Kyle behind. Her steps were fast and her breathing was ragged when she snapped back to reality and found herself at the edge of the woods- once again. It didnt surprise her since that was where her feet took her everytime she was dumped, or when she was the one dumping the other. "Stupid Kyle," she muttered kicking at the pebbles by her shoes. She had hoped Kyle would follow her for she had not really meant to be left alone but when she had turned around thirty seconds after waving to him, he had disappeared. She kicked the pebbles harder, imagining the ground was Kyle. She was mad at him for ditching her; he was a horrible best friend.

She stomped to a big rock out of the path by an oak tree covered in snow and sat on it, bringing her knees up to her chest. Her breakup with Jayden was still a shock to her but it was expected- for he was the fifth boy she had tried dating that year, but no guy made her smile and relax as much as she wanted them to. She could still see the image of Jayden's hurt and betrayed face in her mind, which annoyed her again. She didnt mean to be so cruel, but she had been, so she made a mental note to apologize to him and straighten the facts out.

As she pulled out her phone with one hand, she used the other to remove the painted scarf from around her neck and tie it on the tree branch above her head. Although the scarf protected her from the cold wind, it was also a tool that suffocated her mind and the tighter she wore it the more she felt trapped, yet she couldn't part with it, for it was as much a part of her as she was of it. She opened Notes in her phone and started typing away, pouring her feelings into it; It had become a habit which Kyle said that he hated, but she didn't really care about what he thought.

Thirty minutes later she left the forest and headed home, pulling her jacket tightly around her in the cold weather.