Still Dreaming - Treebros

Chapter 14: "Colorful Regret"

Saturday, October 26th

  As a rule of thumb, I don't answer numbers that I don't know. I usually don't answer the phone at all, but if it's a number that I recognize then I watch it ring.

So when the buzzing of my phone interrupts my Jeopardy binge on Sam's laptop, I think nothing of it and let it go to voicemail.

But when it rings twice, I pause the show with a sigh. I don't want to let it go to voicemail again, because that would be rude, so I muster up what few remnants of courage I have and answer it.

"Yes?" I ask, voice shaking. I clear my throat. "Yeah? Hello?"

"Hey, dude. It's Devon." Maybe I should have just let it ring. We haven't spoken since Sam punched him. I haven't even seen him, or heard anyone mention him. I thought they dropped him, which wouldn't be fair.

"Oh. Hi," I say.

"Please, just... just hear me out," he pleads, like I would just hang up on him.

"Okay."

"Can you meet me outside?" I blink. Devon wants to meet me. Outside the hall.

"When?"

"Uh, right now? If that's cool?" Devon wants to meet me outside the residence hall right now.

"Yeah. Sure," I say, trying to sound chill and calm and not like I'm convincing myself that he won't call me a slur or something.

"Cool," he says, and hangs up abruptly.

I don't really want to go out and talk to Devon right now. Whether he's here to apologize or yell at me or whatever, I would rather just keep watching Jeopardy. I don't want him to be mad at me, but I don't want an apology. I just want things to be normal again.

But, I am a man of my word, so with great effort I pull myself off the bed and barely remember to put my shoes on before trudging out the door and towards the elevators. Hopefully whatever happens doesn't require me to change out of my sweatpants.

The sun is uncomfortably bright out when I step outside of the building. I squint and bring my hand up to block the sun, feeling the autumn breeze through my thin t-shirt.

"Hey," Devon calls, bringing me back to the reason we're here. I couldn't see him because he was standing directly in front of the sun, which I was shielding myself from. When he comes into focus, I see that he's standing in front of what's probably his car. Not a good sign.

"Um... what's this about?" I ask, pulling at the sleeves of my shirt, willing them to be longer. Both because it's cold, and Connor told me yesterday that I look like a cancer patient in baggy clothes, which was his nice and mean way of trying to bring up the topic of eating again. I assured him that I don't look any better in tight clothes, and changed the topic.

"I would have done this earlier but AJ said to wait like 5 days so I did. Wait 5 days that is. And I'm really sorry but I wanted to like make it up to you. And Sam said that you made a comment about doing something cool with your hair. And this is that," Devon explains.

Blearily, I blink at him, probably looking like a chameleon. I wasn't expecting this, or anything that made me think. "What?"

"We're going to go and buy dye," Devon says, motioning to the car.