Frenemies ✔

Chapter 20

As I came out of the jet bridge, I saw Mom sitting by one of the chairs in the waiting area. Her back was towards me. Clearly, she didn't know I'd come out. I quietly pushed pass a group of people that were excited to see each other and crept up towards her.

I was getting ready to place both hands on her shoulders when I heard say, "Don't even try it, missy. I know you're there."

I made a face. "Dang it, Mom," I laughed.

She turned around, laughing, too.

She stood up. "You were getting ready to scare me, weren't you?"

"Duh!"

She and I embraced.

"So how was your weekend with Aunt Jo?"

"Oh, Mom, it was wonderful. I had a really fun time this weekend."

"That's good, Ava. I'm glad to hear that. See? I told you it wasn't gonna be half-bad."

"Yeah, yeah."

We walked away from the waiting area and went down an escalator.

"Do you want to get dinner, honey?"

I shook my head. "No, Aunt Jo and I already had Arby's so I'm still kinda full."

"All right. Well, let's go get your duffel bag and let's go home," Mom said.

We followed the signs that led to the baggage claim. We went down two more flights of escalators, past a few little restaurants and gift shops, and crossed the skywalk.

I walked over to the area and immediately spotted my duffel bag. I snatched it from the carousel before it did its rounds again.

"Got it," I said to Mom.

"Okay, good. Let's go home," she replied, sighing.

Both of us went down one more flight of escalators and we made it out to the parking lot. We got inside the Camry. The inside definitely smelt a lot better than Aunt Jo's Jeep, that's for sure. It smelt of coconuts. Mom put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking lot.

"You know," she started as she drove out of the airport.

"Tori called the house phone last night."

"Did she?"

"Yeah, she did. She said she tried calling your cell but you didn't pick it up. I told her that you went spend time with your great-aunt and you'd be back home later on Sunday afternoon. She asked me to let you know that she called."

"Did she why?" I asked, suddenly feeling a wave of dread.

Mom shook her head. "No, just that it was urgent."

"Oh."

I grabbed my iPhone from my messenger bag and turned it on. I shut it down completely while I was at Aunt Jo's. I figured that I could live for two days with using it. Once the phone turned on, the screen showed five missed calls and ten unread messages. Surely, they were all from Tori. I know that she's not a nagging person, it's not part of her, but I figured something was wrong.

"Tori did call," I announced, still looking at the screen.

"What did she say?" I didn't reply.

I went to the messages bubble and looked the texts up.

One of them said, Call me. It's urgent.

A few of them said, Where r u? Need 2 talk.

I started to worry.