Between Chaos and Death

Chapter 2

That text from Jace hurt. A lot. I was going to kill him on Monday.

But for now, I had a shopping trip to look forward to.

It was 3:30 now, and it took me 15 minutes to get to Haley’s house. I hoped that she didn’t forget, because I didn’t want to be awkward and uninvited at her house, and because I had already used up my number of calls on my phone. My mom gave me a number of calls per day. I wasn’t allowed to go over that number unless it was an emergency, or my phone was gone for a week.

I could text, though. But I was too lazy.

I walked out of the living room where I had been pondering life, and walked into the office. Matt was there, typing away, looking stern and intense. I was glad that he wasn’t always like that.

I clomped loudly into the room. Matt looked up. “Oh hey, Lexi. Didn’t see you there.”  He paused, looking at his work again. Matt smiled at me.

“How was school?”

“Today’s a Saturday.”

“Oh. Well I gotta go back to work.” He turned away from me.

So much for trying to sound un-hostile.

I left the room, even more bored.

My only other options were to do homework, or try to start up a conversation with Matt. I could text, too, but I just wasn’t in the mood.

I went with homework.

I grabbed my school bag and ran up the stairs to my bedroom, which I locked. I opened my bag and took out my English essay draft.

Time to revise and edit.

Joy.

I didn’t have many spelling, punctuation, or capitalization mistakes. I was pretty good in conventions. I reread my paper, and it sounded okay. I wasn’t very convincing that people in high school needed to stop constantly texting in class and focus on their work.

I hoped Mr. Deirdricks accepted it.

If not, well, too bad.

By the time I was done with that, it was 3:20. I ran down the steps, grabbed my Abercrombie and Fitch sweater, slipped my phone and wallet into my pockets, put on a pair of Uggs, grabbed my car keys, and was out the door.

My car was a rented white CR-V. My mom didn’t want me to kill her Mercedes yet, which was a shame, because I would get more popular. Still, a Mercedes was definitely worth more than attention.

I hopped into the driver’s seat, backed off the driveway, and was off to Hale’s house (3702 Maple Bridge Boulevard).

The drive was fairly easy. There was an old guy who looked foreign, and didn’t stop at a stop sign, though. He got a couple of honks.

I honked when I was in front of Haley’s house. She ran out of the house, which was good, because I hated idling. It made me feel guilty, like someone was going to get lung cancer because I didn’t want to park my car.

“Hey, Hales.”

“Hi! After the shopping, can we go to Starbucks?”

“Sure,”

“Okay. Good. Because I have a gift card and it seems like a waste just to leave it in my wallet, so I wanna use it, and quickly.”

“Sure,”

“Stop saying sure.”

“Su-okay.” Oops. Hadn’t realized that.

“I saw Garret sleeping!”