Maybe

- f i v e -

☏

Sadie | ﹖

☏

━━━━━
9:23 PM
━━━━━

sooooo

how's your day going?

guy?

i will call you guy until
i figure out what your name
is

hahaha, like the guy from
The Croods!

remember that, guy?

and now we're in Tomorrow

oh god

are you just always going to

be like this?

like what?

i think i'm perfectly normal, thank 
you very much

or maybe i'll give you a different name

what about

joe

or gary?

GUY I'M GOING TO CALL YOU GARY

no

don't like gary?

how bout joe, i think joe was better

or christopher

or merlin

or voldemort

or like

help me out here

leo

you can call me leo

anything but merlin

ok, leo

nice to formally meet you

☏

        To say that Sadie was excited was probably an understatement. They were getting to know each other!

        It was a bit embarrassing, Sadie realized, to be so desperate for a friend that she would turn to someone she barely knew.

        But... maybe Leo needed this too.

☆

        Today was Wednesday, which means that it was Sadie's turn to help out at her mom's restaurant.

        Which was not the most fun thing to do.

        They were more of a lunch/dinner place, but Sadie and her mom got there extra early to set up and fold napkins, clean up and to make sure that their inventory was good. Her mom tried to make small talk, but for the most part Sadie stayed by herself, wishing for someone to talk to. She and Ellie used to come over here when they were younger, and they'd suck on ice cubes and climb up to the loft space over the counter.

        They had so much fun. Why couldn't they be young forever?

        At 11:30, Sadie turned the sign on the door to read OPEN and glanced outside - specifically at Morrisons (The Restaurant Across the Street). They were a club sandwich - burger - hot dog - beer - lemonade type of joint, the kind of stuff that Sadie would go for when eating anywhere.

        Sadie's family, on the other hand, served seafood and pasta, which meant that whenever Sadie would come home after working, she would smell like fish and even after taking an extra long shower the smell would still be there.

        She understood that her mom didn't like that there was competition, but the people at Morrisons - specifically the owners that her mom seemed to hate so much - were pretty nice, from what she could see. She was about to walk away from the door when she noticed a new face inside of Morrisons, a boy about her age with brown hair and caramel-colored skin.

        He is very pretty, Sadie noticed. He is also looking at me, she thought to herself before she realized what that implied. A pretty boy is looking at me!

        She waved at him before she could think about how dorky that might have been, then left her hand in midair awkwardly. He held up the palm of his hand to her for a second before lowering it, then turned away without a smile, taking his phone from his pocket.

        Well... that was certainly interesting, Sadie thought to herself before she turned around and positioned herself in front of the counter, some menus in hand.

        She felt her face, warmer than usual, used the back of her hands to cool her cheeks down. She knew that she liked girls, after Ellie, that was for sure. And after seeing Pretty Boy in the Window, it was pretty clear that she liked guys too.

       She smiled to herself.

-

        Business was busy today, so Sadie had little to no time to think about anything besides seafood and pasta and sauces. She spent the last minutes of one pm waiting for the clock to tick to two, when she could finally take her break.

        When - finally - the clock reached two, she took her stuff into the back room, a small office space with some chairs and a table, all beige and grays, and thought about Pretty Boy. She had always been comfortable with her sexuality (but still kept the information mostly to herself), she had boy crushes and girl crushes and in freshman year, she dated a girl named Kara for a little while.

        Ellie wasn't comfortable with Sadie's sexuality, and when Sadie told her how she felt about her, Ellie went a bit crazy, withdrew from any conversations with Sadie, and until yesterday, hadn't spoken to her at all.

        And now Ellie was just pretending like everything was normal when it wasn't.

        Feeling bored, Sadie turned to her phone and noticed a new message. From Leo. She squinted to read it:

good to meet you too, sadie

        She smiled again and pocketed the phone.