Forest

Chapter 4- Slowtown

                          

 I woke up to the tree house door opening and my phone buzzing, indicating I was getting a call. I looked around, the sun was beginning to set which led to a beautiful mixture of the reds and oranges with the blue sky, but also a nice dim lighting in the tree house.

I looked towards the tree house door to see it opening and Summer climbing up the last few steps of the ladder, stepping into the room. I looked at my phone and noticed I had a bunch of missed calls from Tyler.

'Shit, I was supposed to go over there and help him with math homework' I thought to myself standing up to leave.

I greeted Summer briefly and apologized for having to go so sudden before leaving the tree house. Once I got to the ground I called Tyler back hoping he would answer. It was on the last ring before he finally picked up.

"Hello?" he said in an irritated voice.

"Hey Tyler i'm so sorry I was waiting after school and didn't see you so I headed to my uh house, my house, and ended up falling asleep, I can still head over if you'd like?"I told him, slight panic and guilt in my voice.

"Yeah, please Ruby that would be great, I can't fail that math test Friday" he replied, sounding less irritated.

"Oh yeah of course, i'm on my way, see you soon Ty"

"Thanks Ruby." I pulled the phone from my ear and ended the call then started jogging towards the road so that I would still have light walking to Tyler's place.

I kept walking until I was about a block away from his place when I realized it was practically already dark even though it'd only been 20 minutes. I decided to jog the rest of the way to his door and knocked, after a few seconds Tyler's mother opened the door and smiled a big smile at me before calling Tyler.

"Tyler that really nice, pretty girl you were talking about is here!"

I knew my face was bright red as Tyler got to the door, but I noticed his face was rosy as well. He invited me in, which I accepted with a shy smile and chuckle, which he returned, and we headed to his room to do math and any other homework he needed help on. He opened the door to his room and stepped inside, which I followed, but when I looked up from the floor I stared in awe.

His room had three walls covered in a nice deep blue while his fourth wall was a dark grey. On the dark grey wall which held the door, his bed was all the way to the corner pushed against the blue wall, facing the bookcase. Next to the bed was a night stand then his desk which was black like the nightstand and the bed posts and the headrest. Across from that was the blue wall with the window in the center, which was surrounded by two big bookcases and above was a shelf full of books. Lastly, the two side walls were covered in band and video game posters, many of which I recognized and enjoyed.

I looked at the clock on the wall and noted it was 6:30pm.

"So, you want to get started?" I asked Ty.

"Yeah sure." He replied.

Tyler and I sat down on the floor in the middle of his room to work on the homework while his mother finished putting away dinner and dishes. We had just finished working on his trigonometry and chemistry homework when I got a call from Summer. I excused myself and went into the hallway to answer the call.

"Hey, Summer what's up?" I asked, wondering why she was calling since she knew I was tutoring Tyler.

"Hey Ru I know you're probably still tutoring Ty right now just call me back when you aren't busy because this is really important." She said to me. There was something in her voice I just couldn't pinpoint what it was.