"So, um." Amelia's voice sounded more like a croak. Her throat was scratchy, her mouth dry, her eyes puffy. "I can't work today. I need your help with something."

She felt like she'd barely slept at all—because she hadn't. It had been one of the most fitful nights of sleep of her life. Her bed felt too empty, too foreign to her, blazing hot one minute and then freezing the next. The tiniest of noises had startled her so much that she pulled the blankets over her head. She felt like a small child, terrified of every sound and every dark corner, and it was only once she turned her closet light on and all of her pillows were dampened with tears that she eventually managed to succumb to her exhaustion.

"What's up?" Nat asked quietly, sounding slightly rattled by the state of Amelia's voice. She couldn't really blame her for that.

"I need your help getting my stuff out of Colton's place while he's at work."

Nat went silent, so silent that after a moment, Amelia hiccuped, "Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," she promised. "I'm here. Do you want me to come pick you up? I think my car has a little more trunk space than yours."

"That'd be helpful," Amelia said, relieved.

Once she hung up the phone, she went to the bathroom with the thought that she might try to improve her appearance by at least a marginal amount, but she quickly decided that it was mostly in vain. She tossed her hair up into a bun and changed out of her pajamas, but there was no hiding her red eyes and puffy cheeks. As soon as she tried, she'd probably just start crying again.

Natasha's car pulled up shortly thereafter; Amelia met her outside and slumped into the passenger seat. There was a travel mug of green tea in the cupholder waiting for her. She lifted it to her lips and took a long, soothing sip before attempting to speak.

"Thanks for coming," she mumbled.

"You don't have to thank me." Nat reached over and tenderly brushed a strand of Amelia's hair out of her face. "This is what best friends are for."

Amelia nodded, knowing that her lips weren't going to be able to conjure up a worthy verbal response to that. But she felt a different type of response pass between them, a silent exchange of emotion that couldn't be captured adequately in words, and with it carried the mutual knowledge that not all things must be expressed aloud to be understood.

A small knot formed in her stomach as they pulled away from her apartment and made the journey towards Colton's, and by the time his building was back in sight, she felt like she might vomit. This suddenly all seemed like a massive mistake—what if he was home, waiting for her?

But as soon as they parked, Natasha reached over to hold Amelia's hand in her own. "I'm right here. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Her heart seemed to swell and shatter at the same time. I should have listened to you, she thought. Too much has already happened to me.

She was gripping Nat's hand so tightly that it was painful for both of them, but she managed to say, "Let's get this over with."

In the end, it was truly that sentiment—that once she did this, she could leave him behind once and for all and finally put an end to this horrible chapter of her life—that got her through the morning, that had her return to his doorstep and turn her key in the lock.

Her emotions seemed to somewhat detach from the rest of her being, hovering around her like a stormcloud but never fully overcoming her, as she dully pointed out to Natasha items that were hers. It was a coping mechanism, she presumed, or perhaps she truly didn't have any tears left to shed after last night. Her body felt unsteady, shaky, as she grabbed armfuls of her own clothes, forced to breathe in the scent of his stale cologne as she sifted through the closet.

Going through the bedroom and its closet was the hardest and longest part, so she was glad she got it out of the way first and then got a brief break while they packed the first round of her things into the car and drove it back to her apartment. Amelia was tempted to not return and just let him keep the rest of her stuff, but the spiteful side of her didn't want him earning any prize for his behavior. And she knew that she needed to be thorough and make sure that she didn't forget anything that was too important to her.

Once she left there again, she was certain that she was never, ever going back.

So they scoured all the other nooks and crannies of his place as swiftly as they could without being negligent about it. The only thing she left behind was that spare toothbrush that she kept in one of the kitchen drawers, with the hope that it would be exceptionally disgusting by the time he eventually found it.

Amelia wished that emotions didn't have to be such fickle things, that her throat wouldn't tighten up so much when she realized that it was time to leave her copy of the apartment key on the counter and say her final goodbye to this place. She shouldn't have been second-guessing leaving such a vile creature behind, but it was hard to just forget the way her heart swelled in her chest when he'd walk through the front door at night and look at her like he was seeing her for the first time all over again. Those tender moments, though they had become few and far between, were the moments she was going to miss.

They shouldn't have been so rare.

The key clattered onto the counter.

It had occurred to them while they were purging her belongings from Colton's place that there was a secondary problem they needed to handle: Amelia's lease was almost up and she hadn't renewed it. She almost dissolved into a puddle of panicked tears upon having this realization, but Nat promised that she was going to help her get out of this tricky situation.

"Just sit there and look sad—I'll do the rest."

So that was pretty much what they did. Natasha practically marched into the office, Amelia trailing much more timidly behind her, and explained to the leasing agent that due to the uncontrollable and quite frankly rude fact that men were the scum of this earth, Amelia really, really needed to be able to stay in her apartment. Meanwhile, Amelia tried to make herself look as pitiful as possible, which wasn't exactly difficult given the circumstances.

Had the person staffing the office at that particular moment been a man, they probably would have had a lot less luck than they did, but the woman (whose nametag informed them that her name was Stephanie) seemed to have sympathy for her.

"Let me see what I can do," she said before proceeding to do a lot of typing and clicking on her computer for several minutes.

What she was actually doing, Amelia wasn't sure, but when Nat caught her eye, they had to try not to giggle at how awkwardly quiet it was in there. The leather couch that they were sitting on squeaked each time one of them shifted.

One phone call to someone who was apparently the property manager and a lot more computer scrolling later, Stephanie was able to secure Amelia's lease for her again so long as she was willing to pay the slightly increased rent rate that they would have charged a new tenant, but she was way too relieved at that point about being able to keep the roof over her head to even care about the money. She thanked Stephanie profusely ("you can call me Steph") and took a deep breath when they stepped back outside, clutching her copy of her newly-signed lease.

She glanced over at Nat. "I guess I should start unpacking my stuff. Thanks for everything."

She reached over and gave Amelia's free hand a gentle squeeze. "You're welcome. And I'm not gonna boss you around, but I think you could use a little bit of rest before you jump back into it. Could I convince you to come and grab something to eat with me?"

She didn't have much of an appetite, but now that Nat had brought up the topic of food, Amelia realized that she was starting to get nauseous from exerting so much energy this morning without eating anything.

She nodded. "Yeah, okay."

So Nat drove them to one of the nearby cafes that they liked—leave it to the two of them to always end up somewhere that primarily served coffee—and after a little bit of deliberation, they both ended up ordering a panini and a lemonade. The cafe turned out to be a good option as Amelia could order something that wasn't going to feel too heavy on her stomach, which was still twisted in knots from last night and this morning, and they only had to walk a couple of blocks to go enjoy their food in the nearest park.

It was peaceful out today, quiet and sunny, and the refreshing cup of cold lemonade was just what she needed right now. Once she was done eating, Amelia lay back in the grass, too drained of energy to care if it was going to get on her clothes or in her hair.

Her eyelids instinctively fell shut against the sun that pressed against them like a kiss. There was a pain in her chest, a sharper aching of her heart than she ever imagined she was even capable of feeling. And yet there was also something missing, an invisible weight that had been pushing down on her lungs for months. It was gone now.

It was gone. She let out a shaky breath, fresh tears trickling a path back over the ridges of her cheekbones and down towards the valley of her neck. She felt Nat's fingers brush at her skin and started to giggle—it tickled.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Amelia. "You can be honest with me."

She allowed her eyes to slowly open, no longer needing to squint against the light as she turned her head to the side to face her friend. Natasha's cheeks, dotted with a constellation of freckles, were already starting to go rosy in the sun.

"I feel like...like I can finally breathe again."

____________________

A/N:

it'd be remiss of me not to shamelessly plug the irl steph, the lovely @smidorii. go check out here books—she's amazing!

steph, thank u for letting me give you a new career as a leasing agent.