𝙇 𝙄 𝘽 𝙀 𝙍 𝘼𝙏 𝙀 𝘿

32 L I B E R A T E D 32

32 V 32

The next day, I woke up early, curious if Liberty wanted to ride with me to school. It was a long shot, since Liberty would probably consider it a girlfriend activity, but I was still hopeful.

"Hey. You up yet?"

"Ughh...give me a second." I heard the sound of Liberty's bed in the background of our call. "What?"

"You up yet?" I repeated.

"Does it sound like I'm up yet, Vonna?"

"No. But it might look like it," I joked.

"I don't have time for this," I heard her mumble, or maybe she said "I really can't stand this bitch", I couldn't really hear her clearly.

"Get up. I'm taking you to school today."

"Okay," I heard her yawn loudly. "Just warning you, I'm not a morning person."

"I'll spoil you with coffee. You like coffee?"

"On a bad day, anything can make me feel good."

Liberty hung up, leaving me slightly confused. I put my phone down and started getting ready, trying to move around the house quietly so I didn't wake up my parents.

By the time I was out of the shower and dressed, all of my tiptoeing proved to be worthless.

"Vonna, what are you doing up so early?" my mother asked, rubbing her eyes as she leaned in my doorway. She was still in her night gown, her hair wrapped up for today. Her dark circles were prominent without her makeup, and her lash extensions were kind of crooked at the moment.

"I'm taking Liberty to school. I didn't mean to wake y'all up," I said, grabbing my jacket.

"You only woke me up. Your father's sleeping like a baby. But...what? Liberty? She's August's daughter right?"

"Yea," I answered, shifting my backpack on my shoulders, trying to see where my mother was trying to get with all of this.

"You didn't think to ask me if I needed the car for the day? How am I gonna get to work? I only let you borrow it yesterday because I walked over to Rochelle's house to help her plan something. You know, A'livia's mother. The mother of the girl who showed up in that purple dress-

"And she looked like Sofia the First? Yeah, yeah. That's my friend," I laughed a little.

"Yeah," my mother let the word trail off, picking at her lashes.

"Well. Can I use the car? You can get Dad to take you to work."

"Why do you want the SUV so bad?" my mother inquired.

"I mean. I don't have a car and I don't get to drive a lot," I said, starting to get defensive. "You never really got on me about using the car before, so I thought it was fine."

"You can use it...but you bet not be doing anything crazy in my car, Vonna East."

"Yes ma'am," I answered.

My mother left me alone after that, and I continued to get ready, finally leaving the house once Liberty text me that she was ready. I grabbed my mother's car keys and left, excited to go and pick Liberty up.

Once we got to school, I parked quickly. We had spent most of the ride just talking about everything and nothing. Conversing with Liberty was never boring somehow.

"We're a little bit early. You wanna just sit?"

"Sure," I said, immediately picking up my phone.

"Hey. I meant like, you know, we could chill."

"Oh. You wanna," I pointed to the backseat, a little grin forming on my face. Liberty rolled her eyes, "No. I mean, we could just learn more about each other. Continue doing that."

"Oh yeah. That's cool too," I chuckled. "I do want to reach girlfriend status."

Suddenly, I heard a knock on one of my windows. I looked around the perimeter of my car until I met the face of someone unfamiliar. "Can I help you?" I slowly rolled my window down.

"Onella!" Liberty shrieked.

"Liberty!" the girl shrieked back.

"Oh. Y'all two know each other," I looked between them. "Yeah. She's one of my friends. Where's Amy and Jeredine?" Liberty asked. A little part of me got jealous that she was asking about Jeredine, but I stayed quiet. "Amy's sick today, but I've been FaceTiming her. And Jeredine..." Onella looked like she didn't want to say much in front of me. "She's the one who hinted at where I could probably find you, but she's kind of staying to herself for today."

"Yeah," a look of guilt crossed Liberty's face.

"Anyways. I'm Onella," the girl stuck her hand out to me.

"I'm Vonna," I shook it.

A zap went through my hand.

"Ha! My first victim of the day," she said triumphantly.

"Onella," Liberty shook her head.

I rubbed my arm. "Guess you got me, huh?"

"Onella. You think you could manage to gather Jeredine and the rest of the gang together? You could do a FaceTime with Amy at lunch. I wanted to talk with all of you at the same time. I need to apologize about some things but also tell you guys some new news."

Onella's eyes went over to me.

"Not concerning her," Liberty added.

"Okay. I'll see what I can do, but you know Jeredine's a little hurt. Just saying."

"She said things were cool between us."

"It is. But...yeah," Onella shrugged. "Nice meeting you," Onella waved bye to us before heading towards the school building.

Just as she left, the bell rang.

"Ready to go inside now?"

"Yeah. I just hope I can get my friends back, you know? No more stealing, no guilt, no crushes. Just happiness and you."

"Happiness and me?" I smiled a little.

"Yeah. And this coffee."

She grabbed her cup and slurped on it, getting out of the SUV. "I can already tell this day is gonna be eventful."

"It'll only be that way if you claim it will," I shrugged.