Lost Connections

Chapter 2

"Honey, I know it's going to be hard without her but please, you can't go getting in trouble like this." My mom said over the phone, it sounded like she was in her car, not that it mattered. I'm just desperate to think about something other than this. "Hand the phone back to your teacher, If I get another call like this, you're grounded young lady." She stated.

"Yes ma'am." I sigh and give Mr. Bradly his phone, grabbing my book bag from my desk and walking out of the class while he small talks with my mom about my behavior recently.

Just my luck. As soon as I started to head towards my locker, there was James, waiting right beside it. He's the last person I want to talk to. I plot to go a different direction, but it became too late when he looked up at me and waved me to his direction. Still, I turn the opposite way and walk quickly, but that doesn't make much difference when he catches up to me.

"Alex, stop!" fucking christ. "I know you can hear me! Please, I just need to talk to you." He pants.

"Well I clearly don't want to talk to you." I continue to walk, but in a slower pace since there was no point in trying to get away from him anymore. "You're the last person that should be mad right now." His tone changed, slight demand and annoyance, as if he's finally done acting like he wants to 'talk it out' and be the nice perfect boy he isn't.

I come to a complete stop. Not because I want to talk to him, but because I need to know what happened. It's been a constant un-answered question swirling in my mind. "Whatever." I say, looking him in his eyes.

"Ok." He catches his breath. "We were just headed to my house to get away from you. You were being fucking crazy." I swear, boys and their stupid excuses to hang out with girls are just unoriginal. "And then you texted her and she wanted to go back home, and I got mad because we were already really close to my house just for her to change her mind at the last minute. So she was telling me to turn around and I wouldn't, and when I finally did... I wasn't paying attention and a car ran straight into the passenger side."

He was now looking down at the floor. "That it?" I mutter, pretending not to be phased at what I'd done before that. I wanted to forget, but school won't let me. It's all over a dumb fucking tea page he created to cover his ass. "Yes..." He whispered, standing in the same position while I walk away. So, it was his fault.

"Alex!" A bubbly voice called out, I turned to see Shell running towards me. Her light brown curls bouncing everywhere in her long afro. "Wait up!"

-----

"I'm sorry to hear that..." Shell's emotions flipped. We have a friend group, it's me, Shell, Loel, Terry and Brandon. Three girls and one boy, Terry is non-binary. "I saw it on the school's tea page." Terry rolls their eyes. Right now, we're hogging the swings on the playground, talking about what happened a weekend ago during the break. There's 2 more weeks until she could possibly wake up. As of right now I don't really care if she remembers me, I just want to hug her.

"Maybe we should talk about something else." Braydon says, raising his eyebrow and nodding his head a little to my direction to signal that I'm clearly not interested in the conversation, or more of I can't handle talking about it.

"Sorry." They all say in response. "You guys don't have to be careful around me, I'm fine... she'll be fine." I say, still looking down at my shoes. "Let's all do something." Shell stands, smiling with her eyes closed.

"Like what?" Braydon sighs. "Uh, shopping! Or we could grab lunch? Movies? Small road trip to the Walmart that's like 40 minutes away and run around?"

"Last option." Braydon and Terry smirk, saying the same thing at the same time. "Alright then! Meet at my house by 5." Shell chirps.

-----

Now I'm in a Walmart cart, laughing and riding around with my friends as we grab random snacks and things, we don't need for a sleepover that is possibly going to happen tonight. Soon enough we passed by a snarky old lady. "You kids don't have anything better to do than to go around running in the store like monkeys?" She scoffed, bringing us to a stop. Terry coughed, "Racially motivated." The group chuckled a little. "I admit we are acting childish, but we are just trying to enjoy ourselves, I don't believe we were bothering you. Unless you're salty because you didn't have a good childhood, or either you're lonely." I chime in.

"You look like you want to report us, we were just leaving." Braydon adds, rolling his eyes and taking control of the cart. Leading us to the registers to check out.

We had just gotten back to Shell's house, to no one's surprise, her parents weren't home. They work 24/7 and when they do get a break they go on dates and sleep. I'd do the same. We all made ourselves comfortable in her living room. Braydon turned on the TV to find a movie and Terry went to make snacks. We're used to chilling at her house, we have everything here. Our small celebration parties, sleepovers, everything.

Braydon finally found a scary movie, and everyone got comfortable in the living room with snacks and blankets, it was clear that we'd be watching movies for the rest of the night. But my interest in movies is very little which is why I dose off during them.

"Come on! You never watch scary movies with me!" Loel whined to me at the register, we were buying tickets to see an animated movie and then she saw this scary movie she wanted to see instead at the last minute. "Loel." I groaned under my breath; the cashier was waiting on us to speak to them... it was really embarrassing.

She looks up at me with these eyes that made me give in and buy tickets for the horror film.

We got settled in our seats and the movie started soon after a bunch of advertisements and trailers. "This screen is way too fucking big for my liking." I whisper.

She chuckled lightly, "You'll be fine, here, hold my hand." At that moment I was so grateful that it was dark, and she wasn't able to detect my completely red face. I took her hand and looked at her, she was still staring at the big screen, her eyes reflected what was happening, I could look into them forever and never get bored.

Something from the screen finally caught my attention and made me jump, also causing my breath to hitch. Terry smiled beside me on the couch. "I forgot you weren't fond of scary movies."

"Yeah." I whisper, grabbing my phone and folding the blanket that was covering me from this cold ass house. "I'm gonna go now, I have to finish an extra credit assignment for Mr. Bradly."

Braydon sighed a little under his breath as if he knew it was something I made up to go home and clear my head. Which it was. But I really don't want advice, or a lecture on how it'll be ok but it isn't. And it's so unfair. Especially to me.