the summer it all changed

chapter nine

"My god, Lucas was annoying but you guys shouldn't be fighting." Allie said, she had a conceited undertone.

She was standing near Remi, a little behind him.

"You can't leave!" Antonio cried.

Kai was angry, he had his eyebrows furrowed. "Shut up!" He hissed.

It was too late, the commotion already caused attention.

"You're leaving?" Allie asked. She didn't have any emotion in her voice.

"God. Just for like, a few weeks." Kai turned to see all eyes on him.

"When did you find out?" Chanel was louder than the argument, but she didn't seem upset.

"It'll be fine. I'll be back soon." Kai reassured.

Jade stepped forward, "We don't need your sympathy, nobody cares when you'll be back. We wanna know when you found out."

Jade liked to pick sides when it seemed like the others would agree. If at that moment, everybody turned against Remi, she would too without knowing the reasoning.

She'd probably be the first to speak up.

"Jesus, shut up." Kai coughed, and he went back to exaggerating his leave to Antonio.

Remi's House

It was four days later since Lucas' death.

After... maybe a day of tears, most returned to normal.

Remi sat and ate Ramen sushi with Cozen and Lxx on his kitchen floor. They were babysitting his niece.

Ever since they'd had a conversation with Lxx on the beach, she started hanging out with Ronnie less and the group more.

He had a mouthful of sushi, then swallowed. "I dunno, I tried Kelly today and she didn't answer. Chanel... several times, no response. Ant once-" he paused and put out his finger like he was ready to defend himself, "Just to check in because... he was the reason Lucas was here."

"No answer." He took another bite of his sushi.

"Probably not mourning though." Cozen added.

Lxx barely even met Antonio, but she nodded.

Lxx was wearing something unlike before, a deep brown zip up hoodie and knitted shorts. It was cute.

"Should we... prank call Ant?" Cozen said sneakily. She put her sushi container down.

"Oh, god." Remi sighed. He put his sushi down too.

Right after, Lxx asked, "Prank call? Won't he know it's you."

Cozen pulled out her phone, "No, no, no. Naive Lxx. No. I use this thing called untraceable caller."

She followed up with, "Remi, read off his number."

"Jesus fucking christ." He pulled out his phone, "He's gonna find out. What are you even gonna say?"

Cozen paused, "Okay. Let's be real, Antonio is a lazy son of a bitch who made Lucas' death about himself and Kai saying he wanted to leave-"

Remi cut her off, "Has anybody heard from Kai? Did he actually leave?"

They all thought for a second.

"We should head over to his house, and then Chanel's. To see, you know?" Lxx was the nicest out of all of them.

"Sure. Okay, this is the number." Remi said.