𝚂𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚊𝚜𝚖 𝚒𝚜 𝙼𝚢 𝙱𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝙵𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍 (Complete)

𝙵𝚊𝚌𝚎𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙴𝚡𝚌𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚜

"Do you want me to stay over for a bit? It doesn't look like your parents are home." Lillian stares out the window in the front seat. I follow her gaze and see that there are no cars in the driveway.

"Their cars are probably in the garage," I reply. I turn to the driver. "Thanks for dropping me off, mister Lillian's dad."

"Call me John. Or Johnny. Either one works for me."

"Thanks, Mr. Johnny," I say.

He shakes his head and laughs. "Don't forget what I said, kid."

I salute and then climb out of the car. As I walk up the path to my house, I hear what sounds like dramatic overlapping ranting coming from inside, despite the fact that we have hurricane-proof windows.

"Are you guys okay in here?" I ask as I walk in through the door.

"My social life is over! Ruined!" Emilie exclaims. "It shall never be the same." I watch her fall down onto what looks like a fainting couch. I raise an eyebrow in her direction.

"Maddy, darling, I did go," my mom's voice sounds from the kitchen. "You missed all the drama. So how was looney tunes?"

"You better change your mind on who you'll be cheering for at tonight's game." I see my dad in an intense conversation on the couch. "Don't be rash, George! You're making a mistake!" he screams into the phone.

"Sé que! Sé que, Maria! I cannot believe her either," Mia says, walking into the living room with her hand holding a phone to her ear. "The nerve!"

I stare for a moment before murmuring, "Ayos mío."

"Shut your face you little twerp," Mia hisses, covering her phone so the 'Maria' on the other side of the line can't hear her. "This is all your fault, buttsnack."

I shrug, casually walking past her towards the stairs. I pause right in front of the steps to say, "People like you don't know the difference between their butt and their face." Then I walk up the steps with purpose like I'm walking away from an explosion.

"That comment totally made me forgive you for yesterday," Emilie says, rushing up the stairs beside me. "Also, have you seen Lucas? I never finished that 'a thousand reasons why I love you' list."

Lucas.

I ignore her and grab my phone from my back pocket. It weighs heavy in my hand as I stare at the line of missed calls and urgent texts from him.

I totally forgot.

Gosh, I'm such a terrible friend.

"I'm going to call him right now," I tell her. "Care to join in?"

I'm such a coward.

"I sure bloody do!" Her smile makes me feel a bit less guilty. "Let's go to my bedroom and do FaceTime. Also, let's call him from my phone."

Why do I have a feeling she's only being nice to me because she wants Lucas' phone number? But I oblige, and she screams when I finish typing it into her purple holographic phone. She skips to her room, and I follow.

I like to describe my sister's room as...dramatic. Everything's purple, bedazzled, fluffy, and glowing. The idea seems hectic, but the different styles actually go together nicely. But what really catches the eye is the purple lights reflecting off the fake jewels lining her furniture to make a sort of disco setting in her room.

"You can sit on the floor." She motions with a wave of her hand, jumping onto her soft purple blanket and grabbing one of her fluffy pillows. I settle down on her fluffy purple rug and grab her soft purple bear.

Emilie fixes her loose hair really quickly before calling Lucas. He answers right away, as though he had been staring at his phone, willing it to ring. "Hello?" His voice sounds from the phone.

"Hey, Lucas! Guess who it is." Emilie bites her lip to hold back her excitement. "Go on! Guess!"

"Is it...Rick Astley?" I can tell he's anxious, but he sets it aside so he doesn't hurt Emilie's feelings.

She giggles. "Nope!"

"What about the president?"

"Guess again!"

"Is it...my cat?"

"It's Emilie!"

"That was my next guess, I swear," he says. They both laugh, Emilie's going a bit more out of control and a few notches too high. Was that a snort—?

"I bet you can't guess who this is," I joke.

Emilie turns to glare at me. 'Shut your face, Paris,' she mouthes. "No one cares, right Lucas?"

"I'm on speaker phone, correct?" he asks.

"You sure are!" I reply.

"Not!" Emilie continues to glare, removing her phone from speaker. "So now for why I called."

I barely make out Lucas' voice. I think he says something like, 'Would you mind putting me back on sneaker's road?', or something like that.

"Don't you want to hear the rest of the list I made for you?"

'Maybe another hive. I have a hawk named Paris.'

He has a what?

And he named it after me?

"That can wait," Emilie returns.

'At least tell me if Steve's okay.'

Who in the world is Steve?

Emilie looks over at me with a scrutinizing gaze. "She looks...confused," the girl says. "Very confused." Then she turns to focus her attention back on the phone. "Now back to what I was saying—"

'Is Steve there with who? I'd hike to speak to fur. Weeze.'

I jump up and rip the phone out of Emilie's hand. "Who is Steve?" I question into the phone.

"Paris? Is that you?"

"No, it's red-haired Wendy from McDonald's," I deadpan.

"A red-haired Wendy would never go to McDonald's. Also, did you know that her shirt collar says 'mom' on it? I once heard a very ominous story about that, but if I told you, you would probably have nightmares. But that's beside the point! Why have you been ignoring my calls?" It sounds like he's pleading with me, and the feeling of guilt rises back in my stomach.

"I wasn't ignoring you," I say, trying to come up with something that won't sound too bad without being a lie. "I was waiting."

Ｉｇｎｏｒｅ

𝐓𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨; 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝

Ｉｇｎｏｒｅ

𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐭...

𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐮𝐡, wait

"Waiting for what?" He waits patiently for my reply.

"Waiting for...oh, look at the time. Emilie needs time to recite her list to you, and I'm sure you have a bedtime. Gosh, that's a lot of 'time's." I look over to see Emilie's annoyed face brightening. Let's go! "Anyways—gotta go, bye!" I fling the phone at Emilie. She catches it and has it to her ear in a blink of an eye.

"I will start from the beginning again," she says. "Lucas is awesome. Lucas is amazing. Lucas is agreeable..."

I take the opportunity to slip out of the room and into my own. I flop onto my bed, exhausted but glad to postpone the inevitable conversation.

Why I had run off the stage Saturday night.