Riley's Box

Part 13

Reminder to myself: sleep earlier tonight. 

If I wanted to avoid another sleep-induced detention, then I was definitely going to have to make good on following the rule of that reminder. 

Fortunately, due to the fact that there was a café on the school site, and the fact that I lived in the capitalist nation of North America, I was able to go to the cafeteria and purchase myself a coffee the next morning. 

The school coffees were alright, but my favourite coffee shop was, without a doubt, Coffee Project. It was located near the East River in Manhattan and man was it amazing. Not only were the drinks great there, of course, it was also a great place to walk. The streets were buzzing with people and there were so many things to do and-

"Are you listening, Miss Ruby?" a drone made a noise from the front of the classroom. 

Looking up, I quickly discovered that it wasn't, in fact, a drone at all, but the voice of my substitute mathematics teacher. 

"Uh, yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I am listening! Of course, I am!" I said, with a friendly smile that was so warm, it probably could have melted butter. 

I say probably. I don't know. It's not as though I exactly qualify myself as a chemistry expert. 

At least the day was a temperate one, otherwise I was sure that the temperature of my skin could have melted butter, too. 

When school eventually finished that day, Jason walked over to me with this glint in his eyes that told me that he had a plan. 

"Do you want to take a walk somewhere?" he asked me. 

I had so much planned but I could tell from the expression on his face that if I said "No," he would feel completely disappointed. I wasn't about to be the one to make him feel that way! 

"To the forest?" I asked him. 

"You know it," he replied. 

Thus, the two of us made our ways over to Jason's car then. 

It was fairly convenient that he had recently been able to purchase a car. 

Previously, he had been working so incredibly hard to get his driving lessons completed as quickly as possible. 

I believed he just wanted to get his license before me, but it wasn't as though that was a difficult task. 

He had been born a few months before me, after all, which gave him a head start. 

After a short drive, we reached the forest and got out of his car. 

I took a few cautious steps forward and Jason eyed me with some curiosity. 

"Are you alright, Riles?" he asked me, then. 

"Who? Me? Yeah! Of course, I'm alright!" I said, in a voice that sounded very much like a person who wasn't alright. 

He didn't need to know that, though. He didn't need to know that at all. 

Most importantly, he didn't need to know that I could see a shadow out of my peripheral again. 

What was happening to me? 

Had I started to become completely delusional? 

I shrugged that thought away.

Now was simply not the time for ridiculous thoughts. 

One of Jason's eyebrows shot up then in his suspicion, but fortunately he didn't encroach on the subject. 

"Alright, then," he said. 

The two of us soon continued to walk on through the forest, and what a lovely, beautiful forest it was. 

I had always been keen on conservation and helping the earth. I supposed that stemmed from the many wildlife and animal documentaries that I had watched in my free time. 

Most recently, I had watched a documentary on monkeys. It made me really want to visit the Tropics. 

There were no moneys in these forests, however, just squirrels and the occasional racoon- though I wasn't quite sure what these raccoons, or trash pandas, as Jason liked to call them, were doing so far away from the trash cans. That might have been a mean thought to have, though. They were fairly adorable, I couldn't deny that. 

"It's getting a little late," Jason said.

Instinctively, my eyes glanced down to my watch and I realised that it was now seven in the evening. 

"Yeah. Let's go to the park and get some food and then go home?" I asked him. 

"Sounds like a plan," he said with a warm smile. 

The two of us then walked back to his car and Jason drove us to the local park. 

We grabbed some hotdogs from a nearby food truck, moments after we had arrived. 

My stomach was relieved to have finally received some sustenance. 

Jason and I smiled at each other, before we stood up from the bench with every intention of going home. 

At least, we had every intention. 

We stopped in our tracks, when we heard a familiar voice. 

 "Ooh," spoke none other than Whit Album. "What were you two doing here?" he asked. 

"Getting hot dogs," I replied nonchalantly, as I wiped a small ketchup spot from the corner of my mouth with a tissue. Very casual, Riley. Very casual. 

"What a great idea!" Whit said then, with some enthusiasm that I previously wouldn't have expected from him. "I might join you on that one," he continued, as he energetically wandered over to the food truck and grabbed his own one. 

"But we've finished ours," Jason said quietly. 

Whit smiled. 

"And I'm hungry anyway. I suppose you two will be making your way back home, soon?" he asked then, to which Jason replied with a nod of his head. "I'll be doing the same soon. I have to go home and work on something for the student council." 

Now, that much I certainly should have predicted. If there was one thing to know about Whit, then it was that he took his commitments very seriously. 

"I wanted to say congratulations to the both of you for becoming part of the student council, actually. It wouldn't have been fair for me to not mention it," he said. 

Now, that I did not predict.