𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 - 𝐣𝐨𝐚̃𝐨 𝐟𝐞́𝐥𝐢𝐱

three

✧༺♥༻∞

JOAOFELIX79 has requested to follow you
- ACCEPT - - DECLINE -

Arabella stared at the notification for way longer than she should have, at first she was confused about how he'd even managed to find her Instagram, but considering that she'd kept the same username since the app had come out, it shouldn't have confused her as much as it did.

Why was he requesting to follow her though? The question stuck in her mind throughout the evening, and as she lay in bed, she felt the urge to open up the app.

JOAOFELIX79 has requested to follow you
- ACCEPT - - DECLINE -

She accepted his request before completely shutting down her phone and deciding that she wouldn't deal with anything to do with him until the next day.

At half past three, Arabella woke up. She was usually a heavy sleeper, so it was unusual for her to be awake at this time in the morning. What was stranger than the fact that she was awake, was that the first thing, or person, that she thought about when she opened her eyes was João.

Technically, it was the next day, so hesitantly, she reached for her phone on the nightstand. She waited a moment for the bright white apple to flash up on her screen, and for some reason, it seemed to be taking exceptionally long for her phone to wake up.

When it finally did turn on, a wave of notifications flooded her home screen. Again, this was strange. Arabella never woke up to notifications like this, not unless she'd gone out and gotten herself absolutely smashed.

The notification that caught her eye was one from Instagram. To be more precise, a DM from João on Instagram. She pressed on the notification, tapping in her password as if her life depended on it.

JOAOFELIX79

belle?
𝟏:𝟏𝟒 𝐚𝐦

I know you're not awake
𝟏:𝟏𝟔𝐚𝐦

but when you do wake up
𝟏.𝟏𝟔 𝐚𝐦

can you message me
𝟏.𝟏𝟕 𝐚𝐦

please.
𝟏.𝟐𝟎 𝐚𝐦

awake.
𝟑.𝟑𝟖 𝐚𝐦

r u?
𝟑.𝟑𝟗 𝐚𝐦

you're up late
𝟑.𝟒𝟎 𝐚𝐦

why?
𝟑.𝟒𝟎 𝐚𝐦

you hate being up late
𝟑.𝟒𝟏 𝐚𝐦

why'd you follow me?
𝟑.𝟒𝟏 𝐚𝐦

joão?
𝟒.𝟎𝟑 𝐚𝐦

Arabella knew for a fact that joão was still awake, the green dot next to his profile picture was telling her that he was still on the app. For some reason, he had just decided to stop messaging her. He had been right, though. Arabella hated being up late, and she had been fighting off the urge to fall asleep while he was messaging her, so she rolled over and went back to sleep.

༺♥༻

When Arabella woke up again at eight, João still hadn't responded to her last message, he had seen it though. Arabella remembered the wave of notifications on her lock screen and swiped down to read them, most of them were from new followers on Instagram. She presumed that they were just from people that followed João, because there was no other logical explanation as to why she would've gained almost 200 followers overnight.

There was a missed call at 4.19, from an unsaved number, which she found pretty strange, but she told herself that it was probably just a wrong number.

She was bored, and didn't want to stay at home alone all day, but Lucia had work, and Arabella didn't feel like going out by herself. She always felt anxious when she was in the city alone.

As she started to think of other ways that she could spend her day, her phone started vibrating next to her. It was the unsaved number again, so she decided to pick it up, just to let them know that they had the wrong number.

"Hello." she spoke into the phone, raising it to her ear, "I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong number."

"Shit." a voice breathed out from the other end of the line, "belle?"

João. He was the only person, aside from her parents, who called Arabella 'belle.' All of her friends called her Bella.

"João?" She frowned to herself, she knew for a fact that she'd blocked his number, so she couldn't work out how he was calling her now.

"Your voice hasn't changed." he told her, "I've missed it."

"Uhm, João? I don't mean to sound rude." she bit down on her thumbnail, trying to think of how to make her next words not come across in a mean way.

"I know you hate me." he laughed, "It's okay, I deserve it."

"Yeah." Arabella chuckled, "kind of."

"I know that I shouldn't be calling you, but, I dunno, I felt like I had to after I saw you yesterday." he explained, "like, I knew you lived in Madrid, your mum told me, but I was never expecting to run into you."

"What?" Arabella furrowed her brows together, "When'd you speak to my mum?"

"I speak to her like once a month," he told her, "Did you not know?"

"Well obviously not." She sucked on her teeth, knowing that she was going to regret what she was about to say. "Fuck it. Do you want to meet up?"