hourglass

five

five

"You're kidding me." Daniel groaned, bringing his hands up to his face in a mix of pain and disbelief.

Jenny shook her head, and looked over at Daniel's face. Her eyes flickered down towards his lips, then towards the floor. She bit her bottom lip slightly, and missed Daniel glance over at her.

"God, that's terrible." He shook his head, chuckling softly.

Jenny nodded, a pang of anger running through her. She shouldn't have looked at him like that.

"Um, in regards to our assignment," Jenny murmured, brushing some hair out of her eyes, "You have my number right?"

For a moment, Daniel was quite confused, but then recalled the partner assignment Mr. Edmore had assigned in English. Jenny and him were paired up, supposed to do something with How To Kill A Mockingbird. He wondered how he forgot, due to the fact that Mr. Edmore was in a particularly sour mood this morning, and gave two kids detention for speaking out of turn, but he realized it was because he was paying attention to Jenny, not class.

Nobody knew, however, that Ms. Rellan stood him up, with no explanation as to why.

"Yeah, I do." He said, still brushing off the memories of class.

"Cool. Uh, do you think you could call at eight?" She asked, brow furrowing as she looked down at her hands, "The assignment's not due 'til Monday, so I figure we can meet up tomorrow or something."

"Sure," he said.

And neither of them realized the other was out of it.

"I'll talk to you tonight then," she said, finally bringing herself to look at him.

"Yeah," he said. They looked each other in the eye, and then the bell was going off.

Jenny returned to her hands, and Daniel stood up, reaching one down to her. She took it, and he pulled her up.

"Thank you," she said.

He nodded, "I'll talk to you tonight then," he said.

She nodded, and Daniel walked away.

Jenny watched him go, then criticized herself again for looking.

+

Jenny sighed, throwing herself onto her bed the second the option made itself available. She wanted to climb deep into her blankets, and die there. Maybe with some ice cream and Netflix, but die there regardless.

Unfortunately, Daniel would be calling her that night. Dying was for after the call, not before.

So instead she groaned loud enough for her mother to hear it downstairs, and dug through her bag, desperate for a distraction, even if it was only calculus.

+

Daniel tossed his bag to the foot of his bed, and scanned his room for a clock.

5:42.

Two hours and eighteen minutes until he should call. And for some reason, he was not nearly as giddy as he should have been. Instead more remorseful, for reasons he could not, and dared not determine.

So he just pulled off his shirt, and trudged to find a hot shower, pausing in front of his mirror to flinch at his bruised face first.

+

"Hello?" She asked, already knowing who it was, but asking anyway. It was, after all, 8:01. And she had only one arranged phone call for this hour.

"Yeah, hey, it's Daniel." He said, running a hand nervously through his hair.

She nodded, but then remembered this was a phone call and he could not see her, "I know." She then remembered she was in a pair of running shorts and a camisole, and silently thanked God, regardless of the fact she did not regularly attend church.

He didn't even take notice of the fact she knew, like he might normally, and instead continued on, "So the English assignment."

"The English assignment," she repeated for no particular reason. and though it was quite obvious that neither of them would speak more than four words at a time, neither took notice, just felt not particularly excited about the call.

It was silent for maybe ten seconds, and then he heard laughter from the other side of the call, and raised an eyebrow. "Jenny?"

She laughed, "Yeah," barely able to get the word out, and then had to cover her mouth for a moment as more laughter poured out of her mouth. "Sorry, I was just thinking about lunch." And before she could stop herself, she was laughing like an idiot again.

"Lunch, huh?" He asked, smirking. Neither of them noticed that the other was no longer nervous or dreading.

"Yeah," more laughter, "A- and Kaylynn practically climbing on top of you." And Jenny just continued to giggle unstoppably, falling further into her bed.

His eyebrow remained raised, "You found that funny, did you?" Asking though he most definitely knew the answer.

"Oh God, it was priceless. She's like a brainless panther or something, just goes for it, not taking into regard of the awkwardness or anything." She had to refrain from snorting, and neither of them knew what on Earth had taken over her.

Daniel found himself chuckling as well, incredibly amused by Jenny and her reaction. "Are you going to be like this every time we're on the phone?" He joked lightly.

"No," she said, still laughing, "Maybe," more laughter, "Okay!" She exclaimed, "Only if you continue to be attacked by Kaylynn!" And Daniel could hear the smile playing on her lips. He was kind of jealous of the fact he couldn't see her smiling, after watching her pencil fly to her mouth, he couldn't even imagine how beautiful all this laughter must have been.

He ripped the thought from his mind though, it wasn't right. Not yet, he thought, but corrected himself; not ever.

His eyebrow went down, his humor stopped, and his smile faded, "So English?"

And Jenny heard it in his voice, and she stopped too, calming herself back down, controlling herself. One shouldn't slip up in cases not meant to be, dear. She could hear her grandmother's voice in her head.

"One shouldn't slip up, Jenny," she muttered under her breath to herself.

"Huh?" Daniel voiced over the phone, and she'd almost forgotten he was there. He ran his hand through his hair once again.

"Nothing." She said quickly, too quickly, but he hadn't picked up on it, "English."

hey hey hey i finally updated you all probably hate me bc month, but still i love y'all. vomment all over this chapter maybe?