A Broken Road

A Broken Road- 16

“Where have you two been?” Charlie asked as me and Alex came sauntering into the room.

“Out.” Alex said before hurrying up the stairs.

“We went to some art fair.” I told Charlie, showing him the portrait of me and Alex. My eyes were serious-looking, but my mouth was in a huge grin because Alex wouldn’t stop tickling me and I couldn’t stay still. I looked high, which gave Alex a good reason to tease me- even though it was his fault- until we decided it was time to come home. He’s lucky Mark didn’t have to draw him with a black eye, but it was a fun day, it really got my mind off of everything.

After giving Charlie a short summary of the art fair, I hurried up the staircase and into my room, hanging the portrait on the wall by my desk and taking my hair out of the pony tail it was currently restrained in. Once I slipped off my Converse and socks, I was about to hop into the shower, considering it was already eight at night, but a ding from my phone stopped me.

I padded over to where my phone was resting on my bed and my eyes widened when I saw who’d texted me. If I was drinking something, I would have done a very impressive spit-take because of the name that was displayed on the screen: Anna.

I had half a mind to not even open the text, but the other half of me wanted to see what she said so I could text her back and give her another piece of my mind for abandoning me.

My thumb hovered over the “open” button on the screen until I finally decided to open it with burning curiosity.

Hey (:

That’s all it said. Just ‘hey’. No ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘How are you’. Just ‘hey’. And it had a smiley face with it, as if everything was normal and okay between us. As if she didn’t abandon me when I needed her the most without even a goodbye.

I didn’t want to text her back, but again that desire to tell her off was there, so I pushed the reply button and thought about what to say to my “best friend”.

I’m busy.

That was brilliant. It showed that I didn’t care about what she had to say, but it wasn’t going to pick a fight. Since when was the art of texting so complicated and thorough?

I think way too much about the texts that I send.

I started brushing through my hair as I waited for her to respond, but it didn’t take long.

Look, I know you’re mad at me, and I totally understand. But I’ve been scared, okay?

I didn’t want to have this conversation right then, I was tired from the big day I’d had with Alex, walking around the park and looking at various types of art. Having this conversation over text also didn’t seem appealing to me and it was just plain exhausting.

Whatever.

That had to of ended the conversation, right? Nobody ever responds to a whatever text. Well, except for Anna because within the next minute, my phone binged with her response.

That’s it, I’m calling you.

True to her word, once I’d read the message, her ringtone- Oath by Cher Lloyd- started rattling through my room.

I scowled at the howling screen for a moment, trying to decide if I should answer it or not and finally decided to answer it. Why not, right?

“Hello?” I asked, putting the call on speaker phone so I could get dressed in pajamas- I’d just take a shower tomorrow morning.