A Toast to Death

Chapter 4

I found that to be quite strange because Velma never had a southern accent, and what was even stranger was the fact that it sounded like I had heard it before, which couldn't be possible, but it somehow was. We just stood there waiting for Velma to explain herself.

"What are you morons doing here?" I expected nothing less from Velma, which is why I wasn't surprised when she decided to deflect and turn the attention to us as though it was strange to be in the same restaurant where we witnessed a crime and were accused of being guilty of said crime. When we kept pushing for her to answer our questions, she didn't budge at first.

Velma's manager then came out of the office and fired her for being disrespectful when chastised about her rude behavior to customers and the other workers. Velma was upset about it, then tears began to fall from her eyes as she ran out of the restaurant. Steph went after her, and I went after Steph, while Dawson and Tyler stood there awkwardly.

"What do you want? Go away!" When we caught up to Velma, she yelled at us. I had no problem leaving her there, but Steph didn't want to let it go. Steph tried to stop Velma from getting into her car, but it was no use. I eventually began to hold the door open really hard while Velma tried pulling to close it. She ultimately gave up and decided to hear us out.

"Girl to girl, what's going on?" Steph was always the emotional glue of the group, so she knew exactly what to do when it came to a situation like this. As for me, I just stood uncomfortably not knowing what to do, because of the heaviness of emotions in the air.

"You're just going to make fun of me, especially Natasha." I was trying to be patient, but Velma was starting to annoy me. What did she mean we were going to make fun of her, and especially me? I already did that anyway, it wasn't going to change anything. Steph tried to reassure her that it was okay and that despite everything she could trust us.

"Besides the fact that I just lost my only job that's paying for school, y'all found out that I fake my accent to hide my southern roots." When Velma began explaining to us what had happened, I couldn't help but laugh. Out of all the things going wrong in her life, from her parents not wanting to support her to her no longer being able to support herself, she was still worried about her accent.

After hearing Velma's sad story, Steph thought it'd be best to become friends with her. I had always loved Steph, but at the moment, I was about to lose my temper. Did she forget that the whole first week of school we just had, Velma accused us of being guilty of Jerry's death?

"But that doesn't explain why you work in the restaurant where Jerry was killed and keep accusing us like you were there." I questioned Velma about it, and she tried defending herself by clarifying that she was just being cautious and she was sorry. Cautious? She ruined our first week of the college experience to be cautious? I also couldn't believe she apologized, without being asked to. I was so mad, but at this point, I just had to let it go because seemed like Velma was going to be a part of our group now, which I didn't think I was ready for.

The next day, Velma, Dawson, and I were discussing what topic to do for the History presentation. Velma being nice to us was strange, and I wasn't the only one that noticed because Dawson kept pointing out how odd it was too. At least we were able to settle on a topic, which was "Inventors and Their Inventions" and I was excited.

We had finished our discussion when I got a text from my mum telling me there was a surprise for Tyler, Dawson, Steph, and I at the front desk. We were all in our usual hangout spot and we looked at each other confused. We all went to the front desk together to see our surprise, which turned out to be all our parents. They were all worried about the stressful and intense first week we had so they decided to surprise us.