Trace of Innocence | Sweet and Sour (Book 4)

Chapter 20

(No Control | Holding Me Ransom - 20 - Don't Look Back)

I feel giddy and reckless until I remember it is past midnight back home, and she is unlikely even to see my text for another seven hours. That means I have the rest of the afternoon and evening to kill, and nothing to do.

I can't sit around the house staring at my phone; I'll go insane. I need to get out.

I grab my keys, jump in my car and head into Beverly Hills, calling my friend Xander on the way to see if he wants to come with me, but he doesn't answer. I call Kendall but she doesn't answer either so I park the car and wander into a couple of clothes shops, staring at anything that might take my mind off Jess and the text. The shops are fairly quiet at this time of the day, and I spend a good hour browsing by myself, undisturbed. I buy a new pair of boots and a pair of skinnies, and the girl who serves me is wearing a plain white tee.

"Hey there Delilah" is on the tip of my tongue but I catch myself just in time, and smile brightly at her as I hand her my card and she swipes it through the till.

She hands me my bag and as I turn to leave I am faced with an entire wall of plain white tshirts in a variety of styles. I stop dead in my tracks and stare at them all, my heart now pounding.

Hey there Delilah.

I'm hit with another pang of loneliness, and I pull out my phone, thinking (hoping) that Jess might just have texted me back, because this feels like some sort of sign that she is thinking of me.

No new messages.

If she doesn't want me back in her life, even just as friends, I honestly do not know what I will do. I feel like my whole existence depends on her reply to my message. I'm terrified and hopeful at the same time.

I realise I have been staring at this wall of tshirts for rather a long time. Without really thinking about what I'm doing I lift my phone and take a picture of the plain white tees, before leaving the shop and sauntering along the pavement, heading in the direction of food before I return to my car. I pause on the corner of a street and look down at the photo I have just taken. The white tshirts fit perfectly with the black and white theme of my instagram profile at the moment. I crop the photo, type the caption Hey there Delilah and post it, before putting my phone away in my pocket.

I mean, it's not like Jess will even see it anyway, after she made a point of unfollowing me on every social media platform available. No - I'm not over that, before you ask. I will never be over that.

I get an early night when I arrive home, but end up lying on my back staring at the ceiling for hours, wondering if Jess is awake yet, whether she has seen my text, if she is choosing to ignore me or if she has actually blocked my number. I am worried I will end up making myself ill if I carry on like this, but how do you stop someone from invading your thoughts? You don't. I try to think of other things; I even run through the lyrics to Walking in the Wind in my head, trying to work a transition from the verse to the chorus, but nothing comes. I am suffering from the worst case of writers' block ever when it comes to that song.

It's the early hours of the morning when I finally fall asleep, and when I awaken I immediately snatch up my phone, sure she will have replied by now and put me out of my misery. But there is nothing.

Disappointment creeps through my veins as I check that my phone is receiving signal properly. It is.

She has ignored my text.

Fuck.

I throw my phone on the bed and drag myself into the shower. I have nothing to do today except mope around the house, and that thought depresses me further. I pull on a pair of swimming shorts and head downstairs in search of breakfast. Once I've eaten, I dive into the pool and start swimming lengths, pushing myself as hard as I can to do ten more, five more, two more, one more, until I practically collapse with exhaustion at the shallow end, my heart racing and my lungs burning. The pain searing through my body from my overexertion is exhilarating. It feels better than emotional pain, than mental pain, and it spurs me into action.