Losing Abi

Chapter 5

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I groaned and rolled over, attempting--and failing--to ignore the blaring of my alarm. As if mocking my failure, my cell phone went off. I sat up, slammed my hand down on top of the alarm clock to turn it off, then answered my phone.

"Hey, Mark, it's Abi," came a voice from the other end.

"Yeah, I know," I muttered.

"Whatever. Anyways, I was wondering if you wanted to come over and hang out today. Mom's going out with Rick, and she said it was fine." Rick was Abi's mom's boyfriend.

"Your mom trusts us to be at your house by ourselves?" I asked dubiously. Abi laughed.

"It's not like we're gonna do anything," she said. "Um...right?" I immediately blushed.

"No, I mean, she doesn't think we're going to burn down the house or something?" I could practically hear Abi roll her eyes.

"Mark. You have been to my house before. Why is it suddenly such an issue?"

"No, no, it's not an issue. I was just curious," I say quickly.

"Mhmm. See you in ten." She hangs up and I groan as I get out of bed.

***

"Aaahhh!" I narrowly avoid falling flat on my face after tripping over one of the many things on Abi's floor.

"He exclaimed as he tripped over everything on my floor," Abi narrates from her perch on the couch in the corner of the room. I raise an eyebrow at her.

"You have everything on your floor?"

"I've got the whole world on my floor, I've got the whole world on my floor," Abi starts singing.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot my princess dress, I didn't realize we were filming the latest Disney musical," I said, rolling my eyes as I picked my way through the maze that was Abi's floor.

"You're such an idiot," Abi said. I just grinned at her in response.

"Soooooo...what ya wanna do?" Abi asked as she flopped over on the bed next to me.

"I dunno," I replied as I rolled over to face her. We stayed that way for a few minutes, just staring at each other. Abi's hand was lying between us. I moved mine forward a bit, and so did she. This continued until our hands were right next to each other. We weren't holding hands, but it was close. Before I knew what was happening, Abi leaned forward...and kissed me. Right there in her room, she kissed me. She pulled back after a second, and we both just looked at each other some more. Abi was the first to speak.

"You know..." she began, "you aren't my first kiss. I kissed Peter Adams last year, after the Christmas dance." I frowned.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Because. I wish I could go back and erase that kiss, and make this one my first." Oh. OH. Okay then.

"Um..." I responded intelligently. Abi laughed.

"You really are an idiot," she said softly. I reached my hand over so that we were holding hands. We both leaned forward again, and...

"Abi?"

Abi and I jumped apart so that we were on opposite sides of the bed.

"Abi, are you upstairs?" the voice calls again.

"Um, yeah, Mom...Mark's here too," Abi yells back.

"I thought she wasn't going to be home for a while?" I mouthed. Abi shrugged, a helpless expression on her face.

"Me too, I have no idea why she's home," she mouthed back.

"Hey, Abi. Rick had to cancel for today, his daughter was sick," Abi's mom said as she poked her head into the room.
"And hey, Mark. How are you, sweetie?" I opened my mouth to answer, but Abi interrupted me before I could say anything.

"Wait, what? Rick has kids?" Abi's eyes were wide, and she looked absolutely shocked. Her mom covered her mouth with her hand.

"Oh, dear. Abi, honey, I'm sorry. I was going to tell you later, at a better time, but..." she trailed off, sending me a helpless glance.

"No, Mom, I'm absolutely fine with Rick, he's a wonderful guy and I'm happy for you, I'm just not sure Im ready to have stepsiblings." Her mom's face turned slightly red.

"Wh-who said anything about marrying or stepsiblings?" she said. I stood up and began to make my way to the door.

"Um...I'm just gonna...go now?" I said, but it came out as more of a question.

"Ok, Mark, I'll call you later," Abi said, smiling at me. I felt my own face turn slightly red.

"Uh...yeah, okay. Talk to you later. See you, Mrs. Calder..." I stumble out the door and down the stairs, stopping only to look up at Abi's window to see if she's watching, and if she can see the ridiculous grin on my face.

She is, and she can. And she's making the exact same expression back at me.