The Seven Day Gangster

Chapter 9

I woke up the next morning to a stream of sunlight hitting my face.

I glanced through squinty eyes at my clock, which showed 11:15.

“Ugh,” I grumbled, pushing open the covers to stand up and stretch. Despite my insomniac habits, I hated sleeping past 11. There was just this point in the morning that I could not stay in bed past; I would feel really gross afterwards.

In the next few minutes, I used the bathroom then changed back into the clothes I had worn yesterday, feeling a little dirty. I was going to have to ask Sam to drive me to some shop to buy new clothes today.

I turned on my phone, deciding that it would be a good idea at that point to tell my friends what was going on.

To my dismay, my phone was crowded with several text messages from my friends, asking where I was.

God, I had forgotten today was school.

I hastily opened my texts and typed a short message to Victoria.

-This is super abrupt, but I’m off to Arizona for a family friend’s funeral. :( I’ll be back in a week or so, maybe less. I’ll be boarding my flight soon, so can you just tell everyone else where I am before they freak out? Thanks Tory.-

She replied right away; I guess they weren’t doing anything in math today.

-What the heck Ari? You could have told me earlier before I thought you were like kidnapped or something. I’m sorry about the friend..I shouldn’t say ‘have fun,’ so instead, ‘have a safe trip.’-

I felt bad for lying to my best friend. But honestly, it was the best I could do at the moment. If only Victoria knew what was really going on. She would flip.

I sighed and shoved my phone back into my pocket, hoping my ‘boarding soon’ ruse would help me avoid giving explanations that made little sense.

Then pushing the door open tentatively, I stepped out into the relatively bright hallway and proceeded downstairs.

The kitchen was unnaturally quiet and I didn’t see anyone around there. I shuffled quietly to the table and sat down, feeling a little odd and not knowing what exactly to do.

“Good morning Sleepyhead!” I jumped up and turned around to see Sam striding past me into the kitchen. He swung open the refrigerator door and pulled out a carton of orange juice, which he promptly threw in my direction.

I barely caught the carton and sat it on the table when he tossed me two cups. One hit my hand and flew past my head; the other missed my hold entirely and rolled onto the table. I scrambled to grab both the cups up, feeling a blush start to spread.

“Why do you sleep so late anyways?” Sam asked, as he poured himself a large cup of orange juice.

I shrugged, not really wanting to go into detail about my fajita adventure last night. “I don’t know. I don’t sleep well; so I went to bed pretty late.” There, that was true for the most part. I couldn’t sleep well which is why I went to go eat Mexican food. Anyways, I wasn’t entirely sure why I had agreed to go out eating with Nathan earlier; I mean, I should have felt intimidated or scared to be out that late with someone like him. Either way, I felt strange thinking about going to that small café at like 1 in the morning.