Friendly Dating - Kira

Chapter 26 - Monday, Monday

It's official; the weather is trying to kill us.

The sun is burning down, melting a couple of millimetres off my height with each step I take, as if I'm not short enough already! I miss the breezes of spring... and I miss my bed. I am so darn sleepy this morning.

"What's going on with you?" Dell asks, giving me a look when I use my hand to stifle yet another long yawn.

We're on our way to school, Delia chattering away about the afternoon she'll be spending with Simon today, first at the town library and then... not sure... I've only been half-listening because I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, and the sun is trying to destroy me.

"Nothing," I answer hastily, giving her a bright smile, but it doesn't go so well because I'm yawning again.

"Oh, my soul, Kiki! Did Ethan sneak into your room again last night?" Her eyes widen, and she gives a completely unjustified and unnecessary shocked gasp. "Did you...? Did he...? Did you and he...?" she is looking far too happy about whatever warped possibilities she is conjuring up in her twisted mind.

"Start doing our homework too late last night? Sleep in our own beds? Yes, to all of the above! Well, I cannot say for sure that Ethan did his homework..."

"Oh," she says, looking disappointed, which is really just nuts. I'm spared more strange questions by Simon joining us and cutting off her next words by planting his lips on hers. Good old, dependable Simon. Remind me to thank him later.

Yes, Ethan kept me awake, but not in the way Delia is thinking or pretending to hope or imagining. We talked on the phone until we fell asleep... I think... I'm not altogether sure since I just remember talking to him, and then I woke up this morning with my phone trapped between my ear and the bed as if I was listening to his breathing.

I wasn't. Well, I can't say for sure what I'd been listening to, but at some point, during the night, one or both of us hung up, or we lost connection because I was listening to nothing when I woke up.

Fortunately, the phone was plugged in, or the battery would run down, leaving me without an alarm clock. I'm sure there are many safety hazards involved in using a phone while it's plugged in and definitely using it as a pillow while sleeping, but what happened, happened, and I survived to tell the tale... or rather, to never mention it to anybody.

How on Earth did that happen?

Ethan and I never chat on the phone... and long enough for one or both of us to fall asleep?! Crazy! I hardly ever have anything to say to the guy except "shut up" and "you're annoying". The last thing I remember was arguing with him about stretching our rules to allow some more "fun things" (his words), like "randomly sucking face" (also his words). I did not find those words inspiring at all and told him so, which made him come up with more and more absurd naming conventions in an attempt to motivate me. At least, that's what he said he was trying to do.

The list included terms like tonsil-hockey, spit-swap and lip-lock, and those are only the ones that don't make me want to die from cringing too hard. I thought he was just trying to make me lose the lunch leftovers I had for supper.

"What are you grinning about?" Delia wants to know, and I immediately get my face to toe the line. Why on Earth is it grinning?! Traitor! And seriously, why does Delia have to be so sharp?

"Where's your school bag?" Simon asks the question I expected Dell to ask me the minute she saw me, but I guess she was too busy studying my sleepy eyes for clues to more mysteries to makeup, and she was also rather preoccupied with telling me all about her after-school plans with Simon.