Adventure in a Cup

The plan

My pacing habit always bothered people. Any time I had to think about anything, I would pace. All over my house, up the stairs, through my U-shaped kitchen. Currently, I was pacing around my room, trying to muster up some courage to just text him. After a convincing self pep-talk, I took a deep breath, and plunked myself onto my pink bed, pulling out my phone. I scrolled to my contacts, where I had saved Jay's phone number, touching the icon to create a new message. I looked at the text box, trying to decide what to write. Finally after lots of deliberation, I typed "Hey, is this Jay?" into the text box, now anxiously awaiting his reply. After less than two minutes, my phone lit up, with his name on my lock screen, I quickly opened it with my palms sweating to see his reply.

"It is, is this Mable?"

"Yeah, you left your number in my book?"

"Yeah I did. Sorry but I have to know what all of this is about. I know it wasn't my place to look or anything but I couldn't help it."

"Yeah, it really wasn't. But you said you could help right?"

"Well, I don't have any specific ways to help you, but I would like to, if you want an acquaintance or something." Now I was just standing in my room, more confused than anything. What interest would he have in this, I mean why would he bother? Yet for some reason I looked down at my phone and started typing.

"Sure, meet me at the school tonight at 9:30," I then put down my phone and went down stairs for dinner, not necessarily wanting to see his reply.

Finally, nine o'clock started to roll around, so I got ready. I slipped on some black leggings, a black hoodie and went down stairs to my kitchen.

"Where are you going?" my mom said, watching as I started to slip on my black converse.

"I'm going to study with Aria," I said without hesitation. Our parents never really talked at all, so I and Aria sort of had a pact, we always used each other's houses as an excuse. I'm pretty sure Arias parents think she lives at my house, considering she uses me as an excuse a considerable amount more.

"Ok, but it is 9:30, so not too long," my mom said, returning her head down to some paper work, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose. That's the thing with my parents, there pretty well always working, even when they finally get home. It is a blessing in disguise however, because it allowed me to prove to them that I can handle myself, so they let me out at pretty much any time. They always throw in the occasional 'not too late,' or 'are you sure that's a good idea,' knowing very well, that it is virtually a void statement. I grabbed my keys off the dish on the front table by the door, and went out to my car.

Our school looked pretty creepy at night. The building was old, the classes were usually underfunded, what you expect from your average run of mill public school. On Friday nights, a lot of kids used to try and break in with Ouija boards claiming that there were ghosts, leaving the school now with extra bolt locks on the doors along with security cameras, adding to its prison like look. I drove to the student parking lot anxiously looking around. My palms were starting to get excessively sweaty, realizing that I soon would be in the car with Jay, and yet I essentially had no plan of what to say to him and no clue of what he would say to me. After about 5 minutes, a small black ford truck pulled into the parking lot, its head lights shocking me a little bit. It pulled into a spot two away from me and cut the engine. I cranked my neck forward so I could see who it was, and sure enough, Jay was sitting in the front seat, cranking his neck to see me.

Jay got out of his car, my hand sort of lingering on my car doors handle, not really sure whether or not to get out. He came up to my passenger side window, so I quickly unlocked the door. He opened the door and came in sitting on my seat without hesitation, letting out a sigh as he did so. "Hey," he said giving me a smirk.