Palpable | Latent 2

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Dustin

I was really excited to head back to work today. I needed me to take my mind off of everything, and singing with Sophronia was a great way to do so. Even while we were practicing, my mind was occupied and not thinking about what happened at all.

I hoped people at the cafe wouldn't treat me the same way the people at school were; looking at me all the time, giving me sympathetic looks, asking if I was okay. If I said I was, I didn't want someone to ask me about it again.

Sophronia and I got to the cafe earlier than we usually did. The manager, thankfully, didn't ask me the very same question everyone else was. When Sophronia and I entered the cafe, he walked over to us. "I'm glad to have you two performing again," he said. "And I assume you're doing okay if you're ready to perform again, Dustin."

"Yeah, I am," I said. "I know we're here early, but can we start setting up anyway?"

"Yeah, of course," he said.

Sophronia and I headed over to the stage. I rested me guitar case beside the stage and opened it, taking the guitar out and plugging it into the amplifier. I made sure it was tuned properly before we got here, so all I had to do was set the volume of the amplifier, but that was going to be done right before we started performing.

We had about five minutes before our time to start performing, so Sophronia and I got a class of water to keep with us on the stage if we ever needed to take a drink between songs.

A minute before we were to start singing, Sophronia went by the amplifier to adjust the volume while I strummed along to figure out how loud the volume should be. When it was ready, we sat on the two stools in front of the microphones.

"Hello, everyone," I said. "So, for those of you who don't know us, my name is Dustin and this is Sophronia. We perform here every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. We haven't for a while because of, well, certain circumstances, but now we are back and more ready than ever. So, here is the first song and we hope you like it."

It really did feel amazing being able to perform with Sophronia again. It was one thing to practice, but to be in front of all these people who were smiling and applauding after every song was such a great feeling. It definitely distracted me from everything that happened.

I only wish we performed more songs, but our manager didn't want to overwork us. Practicing even more songs would take up way too much of our time, especially since we still had homework to do, and I had a lot of catching up to do as well.

After we finished all the songs, we treated ourselves with a muffin which was our favourite thing on the menu. We paid for them with our employee discount, then left the cafe with my guitar to head home.

We stopped at the intersection where we had to go separate ways. "If you ever need anything, just call me," Sophronia said. "I'll always be here for you."

"I know," I said. "And I will. Same with you. If you ever need to talk to someone, call."

Sophronia smiled. "I will."

I smiled back and gave her a kiss before we headed off in separate directions to go to our houses. As soon as I walked inside my house, I set my guitar case on the ground so I can take off my jacket.

Mom looked over at me. "How was work today?"

"Amazing," I said. "I really missed performing with Sophronia in front of people, so it felt great to be able to do that again and ignore everything that happened."

"I'm happy you're not letting it hold you down," Mom said. "You must really want to move on from it, don't you."

"Trust me, I do," I said. "This was a great start to get everything feeling back to normal. I'm going to go upstairs now and work on my homework."

"Alright," Mom said.

I took off my shoes, then picked up my guitar case and headed upstairs to my bedroom. I set it on the ground before closing the door, then heading over to my desk where my backpack was. I took my homework out and set it on my desk, hoping I would be able to concentrate on it.

I was for a bit, but then I suddenly got a weird feeling. I didn't know what it was, so I tried ignoring it and went back to working on my homework, but with each passing minute it grew stronger and stronger until I finally realized what it was.

For some reason, I had a really weird feeling that Sophronia was in trouble somehow. I picked up my cell phone and called her number, holding my phone up to my ear and waiting for her to answer. With each ring, I was feeling more and more worried.

She finally, and thankfully, answered it. "Hello?"

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah?" she said, her tone making it sound like a question. "Why?"

I released a deep breath, feeling happy that she was okay. That still didn't make the feeling go away. "Oh, good."

"Dustin, what's wrong?" she asked. "Why would you call and ask if I was okay? Nothing happened to me. I've just been sitting in my bedroom, doing my homework."

"I don't know," I said. "I had this weird feeling that something was wrong and that you were in trouble somehow."

"Well, I'm not in trouble," she said. "I'm okay. I promise, and my parents are home so you don't have anything to worry about."

"Maybe I'm just being a bit paranoid," I said. "It's not like anything would happen to you when you're at home. There's still a police car being stationed outside of your house, right?"

"Right," Sophronia said. "So you really don't have anything to be worried about. But thank you, for calling to make sure, and I'll make sure to call you if I'm starting to feel uneasy or something."

"Okay," I said, though the feeling still wasn't going away, no matter how hard I was trying to convince myself nothing was going to happen. She wasn't home alone, and there was a police car stationed outside, and it was going to stay that way until her aunt and uncle was captured and back in prison.

There really was nothing to worry about.

"I guess I should go then," I said. "I have a lot of homework to do."

"Alright," Sophronia said. "I really will call you if I feel something's wrong. And look on the bright side. We are bonded together, so you will feel it if something bad happens to me."

"That really doesn't make me feel better," I said.

Sophronia sighed. "Dustin, really, I'll be fine. Nothing bad is going to happen, and you should feel better knowing that I'll be okay and if I'm not, you'll sense it. You'll be able to get help right away. Now does that make you feel better?"

"I guess," I said. "Just... Please call me if something goes wrong."

"I will, don't worry," Sophronia said.