You Gotta Love Life... Right?

Chapter 18

A few days later Kira and I come back from American Eagle to... silence?

Maddi is sitting at the kitchen table with her headphones on, but no other noise except for her too-loud music and typing fingers comes from anywhere in the room. Kira gives her a questioning look and taps her on the shoulder.

"WHAT?" She yells into the silence.

Kira puts her hands up in a what's-going-on gesture and Maddi motions to the couch, "HE'S ALSEEP."

"Well whoever it is, I'm sure they're awake now." I say quietly.

Deacon is laying on his back on the couch with Phosphorus curled up on his stomach. He blinks a little at the yelling and moves his arm before falling asleep again.

"Or not." I drop my bag on the floor and poke him in the shoulder.

"Huh?" He mumbles, still half asleep. I poke him harder and he opens his eyes. The kid sleeps like a rock, and he's really hard to wake up, he kind of just rolls over and goes back to sleep most of the time.

"Wake up!" I punch him in the arm and he sits up, also waking up the cat, who purrs grumpily and jumps off the couch.

"Oh, hi, when did you get here?" He asks.

"About two minutes ago. What are you doing?" Kira replies.

"Uh, I was sleeping –thanks for the wonderful wakeup call by the way Emma- "

"No problem!"

"Anyway, I played video games all night so I'm kind of tired."

"We can tell. How can you sleep during the day?" I never understand how people nap, I can't do it no matter how long I lay there.

"Um, it's not that hard, I always say life is fifty percent sleeping."

"And the other fifty?" Kira grabs a muffin from the cupboard and pulls Maddi's headphones off her head, looking for an argument or some other form of entertainment.

"Well, twenty-five is work or school, ten is eating and drinking, five is having fun and ten is other."

"I think your math might be a little off." I say as a fight breaks out behind me, "Why is only five percent having fun?"

"I mean like having a lot of fun, not just being happy."

"And what is 'other'?"

"Brushing your teeth, sitting on the computer, that stuff."

"Well in that case, I think other is more like twenty percent for most teens these days."

"Okay, okay, stop criticizing my math, it's not final."

Later that night, Big Hero 6 is playing on TV and we're all sitting on anything comfortable enough to sit on, Maddi's phone buzzes.

"Adam?" Pretty much all of us say in sync, on the screen Hiro is trying to fit Baymax into 'carbon fiber underpants' and above me on the couch Deacon and Phosy are fighting over a cheesy (don't ask, please).

"No..." She frowns, "It's a random number asking if I wanna go out!"

"Ooo!" Kira sings, "Maddi's got a lo-ver!"

"Text back and ask who they're looking for." I tell her, "Probably the wrong number."

She types back, faster than a speeding bullet –honestly, that girl could type to save her life, she's got lightning-fast fingers.

"He says he's looking for Emma!" I jump up onto the couch arm behind me and snatch the phone out of her hand while an evil smile spreads across her face.

"Did you play this?" I ask as I check to make sure she's telling the truth.

"Honestly, no, I didn't." She's still smiling, but she also has a look about her she gets when one of us are at risk, it's alertness, if anyone were to hurt us, she's kill them before they even looked at her.

I think for a minute and then decide to be upfront: 'Who are you?' I type.

"It's Jackson"

I almost fall off the couch before grabbing my own phone and typing in the number as fast as I can. The guy might be nice, but I have no issues with trash-talking him if this is what he's actually like.

I press talk and a semi-familiar voice bursts through line before I can say anything.

"If this is Emma: I can explain!"

"Then get going." My voice is scary-calm, I want an explanation.

"Okay, so I know how to track things." He pauses when I don't say anything and starts talking again, "And I could see the serial number on the back of the comic you were buying when you were at the store a while ago." He pauses again but I still don't say anything, "I wanted to talk to you again so I thought maybe I could track the comic and find out where you go on a regular basis. I didn't realize you were going home right away but when I loaded up the program at home I could see that's where you were so I stopped tracking because I didn't intend on stalking you. I set the program to scan for phones in the area and left it alone for a while because I had stuff to do and didn't want to creep you out. Yesterday I went back on and the program had locked on in one of the phones in the area and saved the number, so I put it in my phone and was going to text it later. But my friend came over today and somehow he saw the number on my phone and basically stole the phone and started texting... and, well, you saw what happened."

I hear him take a deep breath as he waits for me to answer, "Who made this program?"

"Me," he sounds shameful, as if he created a monster, "I used to use it when my older sister went on dates in case something happened, my mom actually asked me to create it."

"And you know how to track comic books?"

"...Yes."

"How?"

"Sorry?"

"How do you know that?"

He laughs nervously, "I have a lot of free time and took pretty much only tech courses in high school."

"Yeah, because tech courses teach you how to make stalker programs." I say sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, it was an- "

"it's okay." This guy's okay, I'll give him a second chance, "Listen, this phone right now, it's my number, you can keep it as long as you don't hack my contacts or anything. Cool program by the way."

"Um, thanks? I can't hack contacts, don't worry."

"Well, then it's all good."

"Okay. Well, sorry, and um, talk to you later?"

"Sure."

I hang up and ignore the stares from my friends as I toss a bag of popcorn in the microwave and turn back to the TV.