I lay in bed that night unable to sleep. The weather was warm, but not warm enough to turn the air on. However it wasn't cold enough to sleep with a blanket. It was that uncomfortable in between.
Kinda like Liam and I. We're don't have the label of a couple, yet for some reason it felt as if we weren't just friends. Friends don't just casually kiss each other. It was that uncomfortable in between.
I lay in the dark with my eyes shut trying to fall asleep gracefully.
Eventually I did. Only to be awaken by my alarm clock at 6:00 to get ready for school. It was the last week until summer.
Dad drives me to school and bids me and "I love you," and "goodbye." I meet up with Elise at our lockers.
"Hey," she greets with a smile, as I put in the code to my lock.
"Hi," I say trying to move the dial to the number 32.
"So what did Liam's Dad ask you?" She asks hesitantly. "You kind of left after that."
"I don't know," I shrug. "Just stuff to mess with me for some reason."
"Like what? And why?" She leans against the lockers beside mine.
"Like stuff about my mom. Apparently they knew each other." I close my locker. "But it was whatever. He may have known of my mother, and is just poking fun," I tell her to reassure myself more that to reassure her.
Elise stays silent before switching category's. "Maybe he thinks you and Liam are dating and he just doesn't approve."
I look off to the side, remembering how he "paid" me for my tutoring. I hear Elise make an audible gasp.
"You're not, right?" She then asks moving closer to me.
"No," I shut down quick. I pause before continuing. "But he did see us kiss."
Elise sits back and crosses her arms. "I told you that you liked him. And what do we have now, a friends with benefits sort of deal?"
I roll my eyes before saying, "No-"
The bell rang cutting me off. She waved goodbye as I get up and walk to first period, where Liam sat. He sat with his head buried in his notebook.
I push his shoulder and he looks up at me. "You'll be fine." I laugh. "Everyone says it's easy."
"Ok, I'm not going to be fine if I have to take summer school, and nice try, Andi, but no one has taken the math final. We're first period remember?" He says in a low voice.
I sit down in my seat amused. "I'm confident in my tutoring skills," I whisper to him as I watch I watch Mr. Ramirez walk in.
He rolls his eyes as he puts the notebook away.
I finished my test and handed it in and sat back in my seat, bored. It was a block period and we still had another hour left. I heard the door squeak open, so and out of curiosity we all look over.
It was Mrs. Oliver, our principle. She smiles awkwardly, knowing that she has interrupted a test.
"Is Ms. Andria Lowry here?" She asks in a trying-to-be-quiet voice.
I look back up at her and raise my hand as I feel some people looking at me. She motions for me to grab my stuff and follow her out.
I hear my heart pound as I start walking out of the classroom, it was never a good thing to be escorted out by the principle.
We walk into her office when she tells me to sit down on the chairs across from her. Shortly after a policeman comes in, the same one from our door.
"What's going on?" I ask in a shaky voice. I felt my hands grip the wooden sides of the chair.
"We got a call from your father. He says that your older brother got in a car accident." Mrs. Oliver pauses as my whole world came crashing down.
"He's in the hospital, and he wanted me to inform you of what was happening before he picks you up." She kept on talking but I blanked out. I heard her words but they weren't registering.
I lean back in my chair as I stare at a stain in the carpet. This can't be happening. That's when it hit me.
It was my fault.
He never came home last night after going to Autumns. He was upset and not in the right headspace, and I was the one who urged him to go out.
It was my fault.
"Andria?" I hear Mrs. Oliver then say snapping me back to reality. "I know it's-"
The door opens, and I look over to see my dad. He looked as if he had aged 10 years.
"C'mon Andi," He said in an exhausted voice. I grab my stuff, still unable to process what was going on. I felt this pang in my chest.
"Dad it was my fault." I say softly once I got into the passenger seat and he started driving. "I told him that he should go and talk-"
"It's not your fault, Andi." He said cutting through my words. "When the police got there it was only him. The person that hit him ran. The police say that he could've been intoxicated, suicidal..." his tone of voice suggested that he wasn't done listing the reasons why. Yet he had to take a pause before telling me the last one.
"Or it could've been on purpose."
