Eternal.

Chapter Twenty-One

Alexavier had texted me Wednesday morning with his mom’s phone.

He was apologizing. He said he was really stressed out about everything: school, friends new and old, not living on the same street as me. He said that he loved me, and he was sorry. I asked if we could just talk in person, he told me he had no school because of Professional Development.

“I want you to all work on this for about twenty five minutes then come up here and you can start on your homework,” my math teacher runs her hand through a large pile of packets pointing out that that was homework. “You may use your phones as calculators” she said. At the top of the worksheet she gave a formula. I took out my phone and noticed I had two text messages.

To: Brigitte

From: Lynn

Yoo

I texted a greeting back and noticed the next message was from Alex.

To: Bridge

From: 860-666-7594

Hey Bridge it’s Alex. Mom left her phone with me so that I could talk to you. So how was your morning?

Alex spoke like our whole fight didn’t happen. Even if he did apologize this morning, that doesn’t mean forgive and forget. I had just barely forgiven him, and I won’t forget for a while. I pulled up my calculator app and started punching in the numbers in question one. There were about ten questions on this worksheet and by question five I surprised myself. These formulas are actually easy. On the ninth question I realized I got it down without any of Alexavier’s help. I saw a show once on TV where a daughter was too dependent on her mother to do everything from emotional support to saying her bills. “It’s time to cut the apron strings” someone in the show said at an attempt to make the daughter more independent. Maybe it was the same thing with me. Alex was the apron, and I was the one wearing it, and it was time to take it off. Cut the apron strings. It’s like buying a cake at the store and saying you made it. And it’s time for me to go buy some cake mix and bake the damn cake myself.

I texted Alex that I was actually understanding something in math for once, he said good job! I texted Lynn and spoke to April throughout lunch. The table was talking about an anime about people being countries. Suddenly the conversation of each other’s heritage came up. “I’m more Asian than you,” one of my friends said to Sayre, “I was actually born in Korea” my friend named Angelina sat next to me. Angelina had long black hair with green dip dye at the ends. Her eyes looked like they were Japanese but we all knew her and her brother were both adopted from Korea. “I’m like sixty percent Italian” April said opening her chocolate milk carton and chugging it down. A drip fell from her mouth and she wiped it laughing at herself. “I’m Irish, that’s all I know” I added. The thought of Aiden came up in my mind. How he told me he could take me to Ireland, home. I turned to April next to me and spoke somewhat in a low voice. “What if I moved to Ireland?” I asked. April shrugged, “Go for it,” she said. “What if I actually go?’ I asked. “Text me and tell me how it is. I am obligating you. And I’ll miss you” she pointed her finger at me and I smiled lightly.

I texted Alex on my way home that I would drive up to Winchester the minute I dropped my stuff off. When I got home it was 2:39. I threw my school stuff in my room, grabbed a Special K bar for the road and jumped in my car. Once I got onto the highway I turned the radio on. First station was a talk show talking women on their periods. I changed the station and the news came on talking about a plane crash that happened over seas. I kept listening and they started talking about gas prices going up a dollar and ninety-eight cents more. That conversation led to tax refunds, then in which led to political crap. Switching the station twenty minutes and five exits later, I got to a music station. Dark Horse by Katy Perry was on. I was never a huge fan of her, but some of her songs are alright to listen to sometimes. The song wasn’t over yet, it was close, but it wasn’t finished before an announcer came on. “You’re listening to radio 76.9 with all the hottest bands and latest songs” it said.