Incoming: A Second Chance

March: What Just happened?!

The next few days were quite. Ethan and I still had our moments, where we were deep in thought not saying a word, thinking and rethinking our last argument, but neither he nor I brought it back up. Now when Ethan had lunch with Sarah, he made sure to text me, so there were no surprises. I don't know if this made it more awkward, but again I bit my tongue and said nothing. I trusted Ethan, and that was that.

I spoke with Derek here and there, but was truly trying to limit the amount of conversations we had after he admitted he had feelings for me, and I admitted to myself that I might share those same feelings. Whether Derek noticed what I was doing or not, he didn't complain or mention it. He didn't bring up our last conversation, so I didn't either.

So here it was, almost a week later, and I only spoke to Derek about three times in the past few days, which was a major change. I admit I missed him, and had picked up the phone a few times to hear his voice, or to ask him his opinion on a few things ranging from the whole Sarah and Ethan incident, to Brent and my project, to Kathie and Roni's party planning, but quickly changed my mind.

Kathie must have noticed me deep in thought, and decided to interrupt, "Hey, do you think Roni will mind if I bring Brent to the Masquerade with me?"

I looked up at her, and saw a little smile playing on her lips. I couldn't help but smile back, "I'm sure it would be fine, you ARE practically the one organizing everything."

"Ok, cool. But can you just run it by her just to be safe?"

"Will do."

Brent and Kathie have been on great terms since the night we worked on our project together. She thought it was extremely sweet the way he "set everything up" with Ethan and me that night. She says "set up", I say coincidence. She went on to say it was so uncharacteristic of him, and could see him really changing. I guess this gave her hope for them.

I had to agree, the old Brent would have never done that. The old Brent would never be nice to me, or even try to help. The old Brent would have thrown our fight in my face, smirking the whole time.

"Speaking of the masquerade, what are we suppose to wear?" I asked Kathie.

"Well, Roni thought it would be too expensive for everyone to get full gowns and still bring a birthday gift. So, she decided on all black attire, and masks are mandatory. The more colorful and bigger the mask, the better. She wants everyone's identity to be hidden," Kathie explained.

"This should be fun. And since you helped her, I know it's going to be a fabulous," I said, emphasizing the word fabulous for Kathie, because she has been putting a lot of time into this, you would think she was Roni's sister instead of me.

Kathie gave me a satisfied smile, "I know right, I'm excited! I need some fun in my life." As she said this, she started to gather her books up.

"You and me both. Do you know what you're wearing?" I asked curiously.

"No, not yet. How about you?"

"Considering I just asked you, nope." I couldn't help but laugh.

"oh, Right!" Kathie chuckled. "I'm going to head over to the studio for a little bit, but do you want to go dress shopping later?"

"Yea, that sounds good. Meet me here after dinner."

"Perfect. See you later." She responded as she walked through the door, leaving me back to my thoughts.

My mind drifted once again, and before I realized what I was doing, I picked up the phone, and started to dial out of habit. Before I could press the last number, I hung up, needing to get out, and get some fresh air.