Not So Secret

(8) Back In Florida

"Good morning sunshine." Sydney finally wakes up around one o'clock and she groans loudly, shoving her face back into my pillow.

"Wait," I hear her mumble. She jerks up and looks at me with wide eyes. "Did we-?"

I instantly cut her off. "No! No! Of course not." I shake my head furiously. "No we didn't have sex," I repeat myself once more, "you didn't wanna sleep alone and so I let you sleep in my bed but around four in the morning, your tossing and turning kind of aggravated me so I slept in your bed."

"Okay good," she breathes a sigh of relief. "God, my head is killing me."

I go into the bathroom and grab some Tylenol from the cabinet. "Here." She takes the medicine from my hand and swallows it dry. I don't know how people dry-swallow pills. It gags me so I have to use water or some sort of beverage to get the pills down.

"Did I do anything stupid last night?" She asks, ruffling her fingers through her messy bed hair.

"Well, you took your shirt off at the party so I took you home, well here, I guess you can consider this dorm home?" I babble awkwardly. Her eyes gets wide again and I can hear her gulp from across the room.

"So I had my shirt off and you didn't try anything with me?" She questions me as if something like that had happened to her before.

"That sort of offends me that you think I would do that to you, but no I did not try anything. Besides, I have a girlfriend, remember?" I tell her softly but sort of stern so she understands where we stand. I don't want anything bad to happen to Chloe and I. She's my everything.

"Oh," she pauses. "Yeah, I forgot." She finally gets out of my bed and trudges into the bathroom, closing the door. I hear the water to the bath tub running. I'm glad that conversation is over.

The familiar beeping of my cell phone rings in my pocket. I pull it out and notice Chloe's picture appear in the little box. I swipe accept on the call and press my phone against my ear. All I hear is sobbing on the other line.

"Hello? Chloe? Are you okay?" My heart starts racing. What's wrong with her? Did someone hurt her? I will murder someone.

"Ethan, hey, no I'm not crying. I'm okay. It's Veronica." She says over the line and my heart soothes to its normal beats.

"What's wrong with her?" I ask, curiously.

"Well," she pauses, mumbling something to Veronica and the crying becomes louder. "I need to talk to Ethan, okay, calm down. No-Veronica stop it." She continues speaking to Veronica so I lay down in my bed, waiting for Chloe to tell me what she has to say.

"Okay, are you there?" She asks me.

"I'm here," I reply.

"As I was saying," she groans as if aggravated. "Last night Veronica and I went to a party. Well, I have this friend named Kyle and he had a girlfriend named Kendra and well long story short - wait - do you remember that guy whose car we fucked up for cheating on Veronica?" She backtracks in her story.

"Yeah um Ken or something?"

"His name is Kade but close enough. Anyways, long story short, the girl he was cheating on Veronica with was Kyle's girlfriend, Kendra!" She exclaims.

"No way!" I sit up, my interest peaked in the story.

"Yes! So Kyle storms out of the party and then Kendra smacks Kade so hard I swear his head flies around in a circle! Then-" she stops talking and I hear more mumbling.

"Then I smacked him even harder, that son of a bitch as-" Veronica yells into the phone and I hear her yelling more profanity and Chloe yelling at Veronica to give her phone back.

"But yeah! Veronica smacked him so hard and in my mind I was like "oh damn!" And then we left and came home and stabbed stuff animals to relieve our anger." Chloe finally finishes her story.

"Oh, those poor stuffed animals." I gasp.

"Don't worry. It were only the ones he bought her." She says in a matter-of-factly tone.

"Well, if you got your anger out last night, why was she crying?"

"Ethan, girls are emotional rollercoasters and even though she was very angry last night, the moment of realization hit her this morning and she started crying and then she saw the shreds of the stuffed animals and began crying even harder but she's good now." Chloe explains. Girls are complicated and emotional as hell.

"Sounds lovely," I speak sarcastically.

"Exactly." She says. "So, how's your weekend going so far?"

"It's alright. I also went to a party last night with Colton actually." I say softly.

"Oh, that's great. Did you have fun?" She asks. Even though I can't see her, I picture her smile in my mind.

"Would've been better if you were there," I smile even though she can't see me.

"Aww, that's so-"

"Ethan, where's the soap?" Sydney exits the bathroom in only a towel. I blink several times, trying to process the image before me.

"Uh, um," I try to remember where the soap is but my mind is completely blank.

"Ethan, are you okay?" Chloe's voice snaps me out of thought and I can finally tear my eyes away from Sydney.

"Yeah I'm good," I answer her. I look to Sydney once more, "the soap is in the linen cabinet."

"Thanks," she says flatly before closing the bathroom door again.

"Sorry, that was Sydney asking for soap." I admit.

"Oh," Chloe says, all emotion drained from her tone.

"What?" I ask. That "oh" didn't sound too good.

"I don't like you two having a room together." She mumbles. I can see the pout on her face in my mind.

"Nothing is going to happen, Chlo," I say truthfully. Sydney will not mess this up for me. Chloe is far more beautiful than Sydney, in my opinion anyhow, besides, she'll probably be back with Oliver in no time.

"Okay," she trails off. The line is silent for a few minutes. "I guess I'll text you later. I love you."

"I love you too. More than anything in the world, beautiful." I hear her giggle on the other side and then the line goes dead.

I close my eyes and see her face engrained in my brain. Her beautiful brown hair before she dyed it, so long and soft. The perfect, cute, little freckles dotting her cheeks and those mesmerizing emerald eyes looking back at me. God, I am so in love with this girl.