Chance Encounters

Chapter 2

My heart beat rapidly against my chest as I stared wide-eyed at the boy in front of me. He groaned and ran his hand – the hand that had been outstretched in an attempt to hold the door or warn me, I guess – through his hair.

His head suddenly perked up, "was there anyone else behind you?"

Still trying to recover from the mini heart-attack he had given me seconds previously, I stared at him dumbly before remembering to answer. "Um, no."

His shoulders sagged, and his arms fell limply to his sides. "Dammit."

What the hell? What was he doing here? What was going on – shit. My eyes widened in fear and I made a grab for the door knob. The door wouldn't budge. I whipped my head around at him so fast I'm surprised I didn't get whiplash, "the door's locked?"

"Yeah," he gestured to the space around him and continued on casually, "I've been stuck in here for the past twenty minutes waiting for someone to open it. But I guess no one really uses this part of the restaurant, huh?"

My mind was still reeling from the news of being locked in here with a boy I barely knew. A boy, who I just realized, went to my school. "Um, no, not really," I mumbled. "Crap."

He snorted, "crap, is right." He looked at me and must have noticed my stricken expression. "Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure someone else will come wandering in here in another few minutes and then we'll be out."

"Yeah, probably," I bit my lip and the thought of a wonderful invention popped into my mind – cellphones. "Actually, I could just text Charlie to come open the door," I took my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it.

"About that," I looked up at James to see him rubbing the back of his neck. "No network."

I blinked. You have got to be shitting me. Surely enough, when I checked the corner of my screen, there was no network. I blew out a breath and leaned my back against the door. "Do you have any data?"

I had reset my phone last night, so my phone, unfortunately, wasn't connected with the Wi-Fi at the restaurant anymore. And well, I was too broke for data. But if he had any, he could DM or snap someone to come open the door for us.

He looked at me sheepishly, "no."

I nodded, trying my best to remain calm. It wasn't too hard to appear calm, but on the inside, my awkward little introvert self that was scared of strangers and was terrible at conversations, was freaking out. "Then I guess we wait," I mumbled.

He took a step forward and suggested knocking on the door. "I tried before, but maybe this time someone will be in hearing range."

I stepped away from the door to give him space and he started hitting the door with his open palm, yelling, "hello? Hey, anyone there? We're kinda stuck in here!"

After two minutes of continuous yelling and hitting the door, James took a step back and sighed. He looked at me and shrugged. "We could keep trying every few minutes."

"Yeah, sure."

He walked back to where he was previously standing and leaned against the shelf behind him. I leaned against the door again. Other than the sound of my palm rhythmically slapping the door beside my thigh, in case anyone was passing by, it was silent between us. I hated it. But I was not the type of person to start conversations – I just didn't know how – and so I continued to suffer in the silence until James spoke up.

"Hey, I know you. We go to the same school. Sierra, right?"

My palm stopped against the door as I looked up at him. "Yeah, and you're James?"

He smiled, "yeah. I knew I recognized you. We've had a few classes together. Last year, I think."

"Yeah, we did." Wow Sierra, great response. How is this supposed to stop being awkward if you can't even carry a proper conservation with the guy?

"Uh, how's your break going?"

"It's going alright, getting locked in a storage closet definitely made it more interesting and all," he joked. "Exams went well?"

"They were okay, I'm so glad they're done with." Thank goodness James at least knew how to be a normal person who knew how to have normal conversations in totally normal situations. "How many did you have?"

"Two. Functions and English." He probably had a spare like most other grade twelves and his third class most likely had an in-class exam or a big project in its place. "How about you?"

"Four."

He whistled. "Shit. No spare?"

"Nope, I have one this upcoming semester though, thank God."

He breathed out a laugh, "You survived, though?"

"With very little of my soul remaining," I smiled. Really? Could you get any lamer? You suck at jokes, stop it. Stop it now.

He laughed. "Yeah, it couldn't have been easy. I'm gonna go on a limb and say you're a science student?" He tilted his head to the side with a smile.

I nodded, "yup." For the love of my sanity, someone please open the door before my awkwardness makes this even more intolerable.

I resumed my knockingon the door as I leaned my head back against it.