Unconditionally Yours

CHAPTER 4

I am in the middle of some kind of forest. Big trees surround me, and the sound of birds chirping fills the air. I look around and see the tree my parents and I carved our names into once when we were on a picnic. That makes sense since there's only one forest near this city.

What am I doing here? How did I even get here?

There's something else here, hiding behind a tree, but I can see a tail swinging left to right, almost angrily-it's that cat I've seen so many times in my dreams. Why is it here? Am I dreaming? Probably, because I can't see why it would be here otherwise.

I call out to it. It peeks its head out from behind the tree and looks towards me, cocks its head to the side, and then runs off. "Hey, wait!" I yell and start chasing it, deep into the woods, ducking under stray branches and jumping over logs. But it evades me with such effortless grace that I'm amazed. Just as I'm about to catch up, a ringing noise fills the air, and then... I wake up. "Weird dream," I murmur to the empty room as I take my phone off the nightstand to pick up the call that I now realise was the ringing in my dream. "Yes?" I say, answering the call without even bothering to check the caller ID.

"Hey, Brody," Jane's voice greets me on the other end.

"Oh, hey, Jane," I say, glancing at the wall clock. It's already 1 in the afternoon? I slept through the whole morning. "What's up?"

"Do you want to go to the movies today?" she asks. "They're playing this movie I really want to see."

"That could be fun," I think, just as I hear another call coming in on the other line.

"Wait just a second, I have another call," I tell Jane and pick up the other call.

"Hey, Brody."

"Hey, Viktor," I say, smiling when I hear who it is, unusually happy that he's calling me.

"What's up?"

"I wanted to see if you're free to go out today," he says.

He wants us to go out? So we're friends, then, I guess?

"Sorry, I can't today. Jane just invited me to go watch a movie," I reply.

"Oh," he murmurs, sounding dejected.

"Actually, why don't you come with us?" I offer, feeling bad for making him sad.

"Won't Jane mind?" he asks, almost timidly.

"No, don't worry," I reply. "She wanted to meet you anyway, since you're the 'super handsome new student,' as the girls put it." I can almost feel the phone shake when he laughs.

"Well, I am really handsome," he jokes, making me roll my eyes, although he is handsome, but he doesn't have to know I think that.

"Okay, handsome," I tease. "I'll text you when and where to meet."

I hear him chuckle. "Okay, bye," he murmurs and hangs up.

"Hey, sorry for the wait," I say as I continue my call with Jane. "I'm free to go to the movies. Also, can Viktor come with us?"

"What Viktor?" she asks, as if we know more than one Viktor.

"The new kid in our class," I explain. "We're friends now."

"What!?" she exclaims, like she just got the biggest news of her life. "Since when are you guys friends?"

"Well, he is actually the guy i told you about meeting the other day and we officialy met after class on Friday and then ran into each other at the mall. It's not a big deal," I say, rolling my eyes at her tendency to be too extra. "Can he come with us?"