Who We Have

Chapter 5

The rest of the weekend passed quietly and without note. Monday morning, Andy woke up to her usual routine; bathroom, brushed teeth, dressed up, quick breakfast and then a ride or walk to school. To her, the entirety of her morning before school had become so usual and robotic that it felt like she only woke up once she arrived to school.

Andy got dressed and made her way to the kitchen, taking out the last bottle of milk from the fridge and opening it. As she went to throw away the concealer under the cap, she noticed that yet again, the trash can was brimming with wastes and recyclables. For humor, she pressed down on the lever with her foot, that was already somewhat open, and dropped the concealer, watching it tumble around before settling. With a scoff, she stopped her act, rolled up her sleeves and took the garbage bag by the sleeves and tried to close up the mouth as much as she could before pulling it out of the can.

As everything else, this feat wasn’t unusual to her, so she did it almost without minding. As she left the house to throw away the bag, not even daring to sort out the plastics from the spoils this time, she glanced at the driveway for her transportation.

“Well,” Andy took a minute, and a deep breath, dusting her hands before she spoke, “At least the weather’s not that bad.”

Andy walked inside and washed up before she’d finish the rest of her routine. A while after this had become her norm, she stopped thinking about it and started thinking about other things like school, or what someone had told her the day before, or what happened in the last chapter of the latest book on her shelf. Other things distracted her from her empty home.

Soon after, she stepped outside once more, making sure the door was locked before she began heading out. On her way, she was greeted by a friendly neighbor that she saw on most mornings. He lived with his wife and youngest son and had once taken Andy to school along the way. She had only accepted because she had a lot of things to take to school that day.

The school gates were a welcome sight, Andy quickly made her way to registration to wait for the day to start. Jennifer hadn’t arrived yet, so Andy took her usual seat and waited, letting the atmosphere sink in. She closed her eyes for a moment and her surroundings only brought her back to Friday. Had she been a bit calmer and more straightforward, she would have said so many things to Adam in the car. Her thoughts went down in a spiral, leading to that one night once again.

His fingers reached to the side of her face, then laid entangled in the thick locks of dark chocolate. The kiss, sparking the attraction to unlimited heights, had them holding each other in a tight embrace. As they moved from place to place on the journey to find his bed, he would pull away for a moment every now and then to look at her.

She could just picture him.

“Andrea,” he’d say, with a voice most seductive.

She took a deep breath, her eyes closed and the images still playing.

“Andrea,” she would hear again, her heart racing ahead of itself.

“Hey, Andrea!” She felt a sudden push on her shoulder and, with a gasp of air, she opened her eyes and sat up to see Jennifer settling into the seat beside her. “Wake up, sleepy head.”

“I’m up, just resting my eyes.”

“Of course you are,” Jennifer only glanced at her, feigning an agreeing look before she brought out a notebook to write in.

Andy leaned against the back of her chair and tried to remove the thoughts from her head, knowing that it wasn’t doing any good, and that she should have moved past it. She took a look at Jennifer, who seemed to have been furiously writing away in the small papers.