Four Years

Chapter 13

I had been staring at the message on my phone screen for a while now.

Hey, good morning, I hope you're feeling better.

I stared harder.

"Wait."

"Give me your number."

Two days have passed since Jace came to my house with my friends to check up on me. It still felt weird that he would care enough to check up on the girl who was close friends with the girl constantly chasing him. Ah, it must be because of his kind, soft heart. Wow, if Shelley ended up with him, she would be one lucky girl.

I was a whole lot better now after binging on movies and staying home resting and was pretty sure I could start school tomorrow. Fortunately, Savannah had gotten me all caught up to the schoolwork I had missed in these three days I had been home. Though I still had to make up for all the classes I had missed—

But I digress.

First, I needed to think about the matter at hand. It wasn't like I hadn't exchanged numbers with anyone before, and it's not like this matter was anything else from platonic. Although, this was the first time I had spent a lot of time overthinking something so mundane. It must be because Savannah's inappropriate suggestions were getting to my head. Yes, that was it. It was her fault I was pondering so fiercely over his simple act of familiarity. After all friends did exchange numbers with each other sooner or later and this situation was no different.

But it couldn't possibly hurt to seek advice in this matter, right? Right.

Getting up from my bed, I went over to Aimee's room where she was painting her toe nails in a pretty blue color. She glanced up at me as I entered her room and cautiously sat down on her bed. I should ask her about the dilemma I was going through.

I cleared my throat. "Soooo, how's Preston?"

"He was here three days ago and you saw him." She gave me a suspicious look.

"Oh, yes!" My voice came out all high pitched and breathy.

I tried again. "You must have friends, right?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you insulting me on the quantity of my friends?"

"No, no," I chuckled nervously. "I meant you must have friends who are not so close to you, right? I mean like some new recent friends you've made?"

She seemed to think for a moment. "Yeah, sure. What about them?"

"How do you exchange numbers with them?"

"Well, it depends. We just randomly take numbers from the people who already have theirs. Though it's not weird to ask for numbers, but just forwarding numbers takes less time." Okay, the forwarding thing has no logic whatsoever.

I mulled over her words. "So, friends exchange numbers like that without, um, feeling weird?"

"It's only awkward if you like that person." She laughed and went back to blowing on her nails.

"Right."

I left her to do her thing and went downstairs to make myself some tea. My brain was probably dehydrated that's why it had been conjuring such thoughts and doubts. When I came out of the kitchen with my cup in hand, I caught notice of my mom sitting in front of the TV and watching some weird TV show.

I stood there for a moment with my mouth hung open wide as I witnessed the actors performing the epitome of melodrama. Who even cast these people to be in a show? One moment there were arguing about something absolutely ridiculous then the next moment, they were acting all shy.

"Mom, what are you even watching?"

She shushed me. "It's about to get interesting now. Don't disturb me."

"Oh, God, okay. I'm going out for a walk in the park."

"You're not well, Alyssa. Rest for a while." She turned to examine me with her eyes.

I waved my hands at her. "No, no, I'm fine now. I'm so bored of resting. I need to get some air."

She allowed me to go but not before throwing me a couple of worried glances. I was wearing my black hoodie so I wouldn't get sick again as a condition to go out. There was a park not too far away from where I lived which took me twenty minutes to get there.

The sun was slowly going down; the sky was a nice shade of blue and purple. There were very few people roaming around in the park, and I said a quick prayer to God to protect me from any potential serial killers if there seemed to be someone lurking nearby. God knew I was too young to die. The scent of the earth washed away the bitter taste of medicines from the last few days. It felt good to be out, breathing in some fresh air.

Birds were flying back to their homes, to their chick babies or baby daddies (I really don't know about the birds that well). Parents were taking their children back home after playdates who were in turn not ready to leave yet. Everything was peaceful and beautiful, away from my previous confusing thoughts—

"Alyssa? Hey,"

I turned around in lighting speed. "Wha–how?" With wide eyes I regarded the guy I was trying to not think about just few seconds ago.

"What are you doing here?" Jace asked me with a small frown. Hey, you don't own the park okay.

I shuffled on my feet awkwardly. "Uh, I–I was just going back home." I speed-walked away from him as quickly as I could. "Okay, bye!"

"Hey, wait!" He jogged forward to match with my speed then slowed down to a walk.

I kept my eyes firmly on my shoes. "Did you want something?"

"Uh, how are you feeling now? All good?" He asked, rubbing the back of his neck. I noticed that he did this a lot.

"Yeah, I'm great now! Actually, I'll go to school tomorrow."

His lips quirked up in a half-smile; my heart felt itchy. "I'm glad to hear that."

"Okay, um, see you. It's late you should go home." I told him, glancing at the dark sky.

He ran his hand through his hair. "Let me walk you home."

Startled, I stopped and peaked at him. His eyes didn't hesitate when connected with mine.

"You really don't need to." I told him.

"I insist." Right, he was the perfect gentleman. It would only be weird if he hadn't offered at all. Let's not make abrupt conclusions doubting his motives. It wasn't like he was a serial killer; he looked like he hadn't hurt a fly in his life.

Still, I gave him an uncertain look. "Are you sure? It's getting dark, you'll get late in reaching your house."

"It's alright. Besides it wouldn't be proper to let a girl walk alone in the dark." Then he smiled.

"Okay."

The way back home took the same amount of time it had taken me to come to the park, but time somehow seemed to be passing rather slowly. Jace and my arms had as little of space as a feather's width between them. His aura was so bright, he had a moonlight of his own. However, when suddenly he stopped me, I thought he had for sure heard my thoughts and was going to confront me.

"Wait."

Crouching down, he tied my shoelaces quickly. I stared at him with wide eyes.

This boy needed to be less perfect.

Thankfully, we reached my house before I could've passed out from all my crazy thoughts. I shook my head and ordered my brain to stop making up bullshit which was clearly not true.

Jace walked me up to the porch steps and gave me a single wave. "I'll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight, Alyssa."

"Goodnight." Please God, let my eyes not turn into hearts. I cleared my throat and flipped my hair over my shoulder. "Thank you for walking me home, dude."

I just fleetingly caught Jace mouthing the word 'dude' that I had just thrown at him, with a shocked expression marring his face before I slammed the door closed and leaned against it for a long while.