The Quiet Kids

Chapter Five: Em

 With a sigh, I pushed my Mom Letter Box up into it's place at the tippy top shelf in my closet. I was so thankful that Angel had kept it for me. I was sure that him or another worker would have just thrown it away. Maybe he thought about me, maybe he wanted me to come back for it. As soon as I had the thought, I pushed it down. I was sure that he was used to girls fawning over him. He probably just saved it to be polite, probably didn't even know that it was mine, specifically. I had barely said 2 words to him, after all.

It was a dreary, rainy Sunday, and I could already feel the loneliness sinking in. Dad was at work like always, Sam was off on a day trip with Julia, Darcy was... Somewhere. Probably off with that cute guy that I had seen dropping her off the other night. 

Angel's brother.

That was a weird turn of events, but I didn't give it much thought. Darcy never kept boys around for long, I was sure that this dude would be no different, no matter if I actually kind of liked this one for her. Though I hadn't seen that much of him to be fair, he already seemed a lot better than the normal guys she dated. 

I had only caught a few glimpses of him from the living room window as he was dropping her off.  He was a handsome guy, short cropped hair and a clean shaven face. He looked a bit rugged, kind of military handsome. The fact that he didn't have any obvious face tattoos was a plus as well. Darcy seemed to have a thing for guys with face tattoos. I had wanted to tell him that I was grateful for him giving her a ride home, but I felt awkward. 

And, of course I had seen Angel sitting in the backseat. I had to fight the urge not to stare at him like a creeper. 

Darcy getting too drunk to drive herself home before 10 pm didn't really surprise me. I was starting to get worried for my sister. It's not like our dad was around  to notice. She still managed to function every day, but it still made me nervous. I didn't want to watch her go downhill. She meant too much to me. 

Still, there wasn't a lot that I could do today. She wasn't here for me to talk to, and if she was, she wouldn't listen anyways. I wasn't exactly sure what to do. 

I thought about texting Angel to get my mind off of it. I came up with about 200 rough drafts in my head of what to say. I had nothing. I knew that I wanted to see him again, but I didn't really know anything else about him. For the first time in a while though, I wanted to.

Just when I was about to throw my phone out of my window, it vibrated in my hand. It was him. Shit.

Speak of the devil. Or, I guess in this case.. Speak of an Angel?

My heart was racing, I told it to slow down but it didn't listen.

"Hey, Em. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today? This is Angel, by the way.. Lol."

As if I didn't know who it was. The thought made me laugh. As if I hadn't been thinking about the cute waiter who had held onto a piece of my mom for me, just in case. I had to play it cooler than I was feeling though, or I was going to come off creepy. It had been over a year since I flirted, and before that, pretty much my whole life.

A cute boy wanted to hang out with me. And I kind of wanted to throw up.. But in a good way.

"Sure! What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I know its drizzling and kind of cold outside.. But I was thinking that I could take you to this really pretty spot I know, if you have a raincoat. Or you can borrow one of mine."

My heart skipped a beat at the thought of wearing his jacket. I told him I had one, and he said he would be there to pick me up in 15 minutes. Which meant that I had 15 minutes to try to look somewhat presentable. I ran a brush through my hair, but I realized that the rain was just going to make it poof up, so I tied it up into a ponytail. I didn't bother with makeup either because of the rain, which made me even more nervous. He had only ever seen me all dolled up at the restaurant on a date, what if he saw how I normally looked and didn't like it? My stomach churned. I felt a panic attack coming on, and I wished Darcy was here to help.