Shatter

Stella was glued to the screen. The dancer she watched jerked sharply from one side to the other like two people were trying to pull her to their side. As if she were the rope in a game of tug of war. Stella gaped. Suddenly, it all made sense. Yet it didn't. But the confusion she felt was just like that. Just like she were the rope in a game of tug of war between two people she loved dearly. Two people between whom she didn't want to choose. She looked at them both in turn. The best friend she'd grown up with, and her partner, who had been around as long as Stella could remember. The partner she'd come to love just as much as her best friend. She looked at them both, her eyes pleading. Please, she wanted to scream. Please don't make me choose. Please just let me be. Stella wanted nothing more than for the game to be over. To be allowed to fall in the centre, on the neutral line that was on the side of no one. But, it was no use, the rope was being pulled with equally harsh force from both sides. Soon, Stella was sure, it would snap. Then she would be forced onto a side.

It had seemed her perfect little world had been contained within a snow dome. Except the protective glass barrier had shattered, and she was suddenly exposed to the elements. Her world as she knew it had shattered along with that glass. Stella was left standing among the wreckage, searching desperately for something familiar. Something she knew, that she could cling on to for dear life until the Earth stopped shaking around her. Until the world was normal again. Except, Stella got the feeling it wouldn't ever be normal. 

Her friend had changed since the shattering. Things between them had changed. He wasn't the same person Stella remembered growing up with. She couldn't remember things being this awkward between them.Stella struggled not to squirm as she was made to sit and listen to him badmouth her. She'd never heard her friend talked about in this light before. She'd never heard either of them spoken badly of before now. She'd heard their other friends complained about plenty of times before, but Joe and Whitney had always been the golden couple. Even when everything else seemed to be falling apart, they stood together. They were the couple that made you believe in love. Until now. Now, the world really was falling apart. Everything was starting to shatter and Stella wasn't sure how to fix it again. She wasn't sure of anything, if she was really honest.

Yet, still, a small part of her hoped that one day the glass around her little world would be rebuilt. She wasn't sure how or when, nor how her world would look. But, she held out hope that somehow, someway, her world would be rebuilt, and both Joe and Whitney would be in it.