Chapter 10
After the fiasco that was her weekend in Miami, Sydney decided to quit trying to meddle in her own life and let things come as they may. She was driving herself mad thinking about it and figured that, eventually, she’d figure it out. Eventually. She hoped, though, that ‘eventually’ would come a bit sooner than as she was walking down the aisle towards the alter towards Brian.
Throughout the holidays, Sydney and Michael spent time apart with their respective families. Brian jumped in between them, spending Christmas with his parents while Sydney spent it with hers, but Brian was sure to point out that was probably the last holiday they’d spend apart. Sydney had to admit this little fact didn’t excite or thrill her, which caused her to worry. She talked to her parents about her concerns over Christmas and received mixed advice. Her mother encouraged her to keep trying; her father told her to break it off and run far away, to which her mother hit him. Her father attempted to explain himself by stating it was better to run away then than to divorce later on.
Unfortunately, this confused Sydney even more. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to give up Brian forever, especially since she was still suffering from the delusion that her feelings for Michael would eventually go away. So, instead of dealing with it, she went back to her plan of ignoring it all together.
~*~
“Michael, can I talk to you for a sec?”
Michael looked down at his phone, confused for a second. His caller ID read ‘Sydney’ but this wasn’t Sydney. “Brian?!”
“Yes… I’m using Sydney’s phone; mine died.”
“Oh, ok, go on then.”
“Are you busy in two weekends?”
“Two weekends…,” Michael paused as he looked at his nearby calendar. “January 20th?”
“Yeah.”
“Umm nope I’m free. What’s going on?”
“Well, I found this really cool cabin while searching online and it looks like a really nice place to get married and that weekend they’re having a special open-house thing and I wanna go check it out. Mom and Dad are going, and obviously Syd is, so I was wondering if you wanted to tag along, you know, just to see. I got this free coupon thing so the room is totally free,” Brian told him.
Michael gulped. A weekend during which Sydney and Brian would be planning their wedding and he would be the third wheel? Sounded like a fate worse than death to him. “S-sure, I’ll come,” he said with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, loathing the masochist within him.
“Okay great. Mom, Dad and I are leaving at one, but Syd wasn’t sure if you guys could leave that early from work or something… I’m not sure what she said. But I can forward you the directions to your email account.”
“Okay, sounds good. I’ll check with Syd at work tomorrow and see when we can get off… okay, bye,” Michael groaned immediately upon hanging up the phone. Why did he do that to himself? The thought of watching as Sydney and Brian ogled each other while looking at wedding locations was enough to make him lose his supper then and there. He shuddered to think about watching it live and in person.
Ever since the night at Sydney’s apartment when she taught him how to make chicken, things relating to Sydney and Brian’s relationship either made him immediately nauseous or insanely depressed. For starters, there was their almost kiss, something her cursed himself for daily, and on top of that there was the fact that he fully came to the realization then that Sydney and Brian were getting married; married, as in bonded together forever.
With that realization came, for the perhaps the first time in his life, jealousy towards his brother. His brother had Sydney and Michael wanted her. Up until then, he had been trying to ignore his feelings for her, but he just couldn’t do it. She was just too damn perfect, in his mind anyway. For starters, she was beautiful and she had the exact personality he was looking for in a girlfriend: she was sweet, funny and smart. On top of the fact that they got along perfectly, not to mention the fact that he wanted to kiss her more than anything, spend all his time with her, and, basically, be with her forever.
Unfortunately, though, there was nothing he could do. Though he realized Sydney didn’t hate his guts, she was still with Brian. He did feel as though she was going to kiss him in her kitchen that time, but he just wasn’t sure, and he was afraid to bring it up to her, for fear that she’d turn him down and he’d lose her as a friend; something he couldn’t bear.
Sighing, he realized there was nothing he could do about it, not at that moment anyway, so he put his phone down and returned to the couch, knowing that he’d have to have an awkward conversation with Sydney the following day.
~*~
“I need to talk to you…” Sydney and Michael began simultaneously the moment they saw each other at work the following day. Then, they both laughed.
“This is about the cabin thing, right? Well, actually it’s more like a lodge,” Sydney said. Michael nodded. “Well I was planning on asking Mr. Johnson after I hand in my proposal at three,” she said, referring to their boss. Again, Michael nodded. “Okay well… I’ll talk to you then though.”
When three rolled around, Sydney’s boss was thrilled with her proposal, so she decided that was a good time to ask him after all. He was hesitant to give Sydney and Michael the entire Friday off, since, as he said, they were his two best worker bees, but he agreed to let them leave early.
“So, um, I guess we can just drive up separate from everyone else then? I mean, do you care?” Sydney asked cautiously.
Michael shook his head. “Nah that’s cool. No big deal. That way we don’t have to be around for my mom’s ‘ooo’-ing and ‘aaaah’-ing and asking all kinds of embarrassing and annoying questions.”
“Right,” Sydney laughed.
.. shes so in lurve 
