Loves Me Not

*REVISED* Chapter Eleven

We've been lying on my bed for hours now, watching reruns of Law & Order: SVU. Neither of us have the will to move from our spots on the bed, the mattress conforming to our bodies and sucking us even deeper in. Between my slowly fading headache, Archer's outburst, and Ellie's breakdown I'm absolutely exhausted.

And starving.

I haven't eaten all day. But I can barely summon the strength to blink, let alone walk downstairs and fix myself something to eat. Maybe Ellie'll do it for me.

"Wanna go downstairs and grab a snack?" I roll my head to look at Ellie. Her eyes are closed with her mouth slightly open, heavy breaths causing her chest to rise and fall as she happily sleeps the afternoon away. Well, there goes my plan of convincing her to get me some food.

Time for Plan B. I pick up my cellphone and dial Archer's number. Thankfully he answers on the second ring.

"Aren't you in your room?" I hear the spray of gunfire in the background. He's probably downstairs playing Call of Duty on the PS4.

"Since you were a giant ass earlier do wanna do me a favor now?" I reply sweetly.

I hear him sigh and the background noises stop abruptly. "I'm sorry about that," he says after a moment. "Mom says I need to work on my auditory processing skills or something like that."

"I have no idea what that means," I laugh. "But all will be forgiven if you bring up a tray full of snacks."

Silence and gunfire radiate from the other line.

"Deal." He says after a few moments of consideration. "Give me a few minutes."

I hang up and drop my cell at my side, refocusing on the TV. I'm not able to focus for long before my mind begins to drift back to this morning. I haven't really stopped to think about Charlie since I've been in the car, but he's at the center of my thoughts now.

I can still hear the deep ring of his voice as he whispered; "...I really do look forward to hearing from you later, Kaiydeen."

Did he really mean that?

I try to figure out what it is that would draw him to me. I look down at my body that is sprawled lazily on top of my comforter. I point my toes as I try to graze the ebony-stained footboard of my bed with my groomed toenails. I trace my hands over the moldable flesh of my mocha colored thighs as I stretch, my fingernails running along the dark skin at the tops of my thighs down to my ankles. I trace my fingers back up my thick thighs to my stomach, grabbing hold of the thick layer of excess flesh at my abdomen before I let go.

My hands naturally follow the route up my body, coming to tangle my hands in the sloppy bun of braids at the top of my head. I roughly scratch my roots, reminding myself that I really need to redo my hair now that I'm back home. Maybe I'll go natural for a while and let my kinky black hair out to play in a fro.

I almost get up to look in the mirror as I continue examining myself but I already know what I'll see. A squarish face that tapers into a rounded chin; brown eyes that tilt up at the edges to try to kiss the pointed ends of my thickly arched eyebrows; full lips that almost stretch thin whenever a smile graces my face, which is often.

I'm not really special. That's why I haven't really had any boys lusting after me, well, at least not that I've noticed. And the ones that have, like Dustin, tend to lose interest when they figure out I'm not one of those girls who put out on the second date. So they find someone else who will.

I'm definitely not someone who could get a guy like Charlie.

He may just be a high schooler, but the way he carries himself makes it seem like he has the entire world at his fingertips. Like he could have anything he could ever want, and all he has to do is ask. Any girl he could ever want.