Chaos

Chapter 22: Anticipation- Nate

Chapter 22: Anticipation 

P.O.V: Nate

Once we pulled into the driveway, Nicole helped me bring in the bags of food,still not a single word spoken between us since the antique store.

Nicole walked up into the house, at a faster pace than normal, and started violently putting food into the cupboards.

“Tell me if this is nice,” I say, suddenly really worried that she would just completely ignore me. She doesn’t have to like me, but I would still want to be friends. If she can't like me like that, I know at least we have friendship.

“What?” she asks, and I almost face-palm.

“I always get my mom a present when I go places,” I say lying through my teeth, not wanting her to think I’m a creepy person or anything relatively close to the truth.

“It’s beautiful,” Nicole says as she opens the box.

“Keep it safe for me?” I ask, suddenly really sweaty as I lift the ring from the box and hold it out to her.

“Of course,” she says, and holds her hand out. I roll my eyes and turn her right hand over, carefully placing the ring on her finger. I am very aware that my hands are so sweaty and shaky it’s as if I’m proposing.

“There,” I say, as she looks down upon the ring with a slight smile on her face. I don’t exactly know why, but this gave me just a little bit more hope that I could win her over. I’m rambling again.

Just then, her phone went off.

“Ryan! Oh my god I miss you so much!” Nicole yelled into the phone.

I instantly freeze up.

“Who’s Ryan?” I ask, feeling like an idiot.

“I told you everything would be different!” Nicole says with a carefree laugh, not knowing she was killing me just a little bit inside, as she sits down into a chair.

“They’re amazing, I’ve met some new people and my new house is huge!” says Nicole. I really want to hear who’s on the other end.

Nicole laughs randomly.

“No one can replace you Rye! You’re too special, I could never find anybody else like you, by the way, have you seen my dad?” Nicole says, and I turn around so she couldn’t see my face, which I’m sure was probably really heartbroken.

“Why are you with my dad if I’m not there?” Nicole asks, a confused look crossing her face. I turn around curiously.

“Okay, I have something really important to tell you that I can’t say right now anyway, you’re totally going to hate me,” she says, looking up at my face, which was probably hard to read considering I was mad, sad, hurt, and impatient all at the same time.

“Okay, love you Ryan,” Nicole says, and I turn back around.

“Bye,” she says finally.

“Was that a friend from home?” I ask, trying to pretend it didn’t matter to me either way as I threw random food into random places.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Nicole says, leading me to finally accept the fact that all hope was officially over for me.

“Nikki, was that your boyfriend?” I ask, spinning around, dead serious.

“What!?” she asks.

“Do you have a boyfriend back in Ottawa?” I repeat, hoping that she would say no.