Sleep Soundly, Sabella [Finished]

Chapter Ten

       The school year was slipping away, along with my grades. The grades that were amazing last year were now falling, even though I did all my homework. Sure, I wasn't studying like I used to, but that shouldn't matter because I was studying more now. I was putting so much pressure on myself and it wasn't helping. I just wanted to please my parents but my grades kept going down. That absolutely sucked.

       Stress. My worst enemy. It caused me pain and misery and it just made me so...stressed.I guess stress can make you stressed, though. That would make sense, wouldn't it?

       Kyle had been acting slightly different the past few days. We had known each other for about four months now, and the winter coming made us move from outdoor places like the park, to indoor zones like the local coffee shop that we went to the one day before school. 

       He was more distant, though. He didn't call as often or reply to my texts as fast, and when we did talk, he tended to zone out and just...stare. It seemed like his goal was to look at anyone and anything other than me. He was just so...weird, lately.

       Currently I was sitting on my bed with my book that I was supposed to read in my hand. That book was 11/22/63 by Stephen King. The one about the person who traveled through time to attempt to prevent the Kennedy assassination. I wouldn't know if he did it or not, due to the fact I was only about halfway through the stupid book. I mean, it was good so far it was just so...long.

       We were reading this book in English class and that meant that is needed to be finished by Monday, which was five days away. Four hundred something pages in five days. I just had one question...why? It's not like I wanted to close myself in a room for five days straight. I had a life, didn't the teachers understand that? I also had other work from other classes. Didn't teachers understand that?

       Nope.

       I tried to read through another sentence, than another paragraph, than another page, than another chapter. It was slow, seeing as I needed to actually absorb what I read. I needed to do it, though. It was better than doing my math packet that was due in two days. 

       About an hour later I found myself sitting in the kitchen with a bag of chips and my book. The sad part was I was paying more attention to the chips, rather than actually reading the book. The packet that I was supposed to fill out by the chapters was sitting next to me, opened to the page for chapter sixteen to chapter twenty.

       An hour after that I had finally finished chapter nineteen and I marked my spot before turning to the paper. Just as I had began to fill out the next section, my phone started ringing from the other room.

       Immediately, I rushed up and into the other room, quickly answering my phone before checking who it was. I knew who it would be. Kyle, obviously. I really hoped that no one heard my phone going off. My family had gotten a little better, it seemed. At least my dad had; he no longer took food from me claiming it was his. He just ignored me like everyone else. I was a ghost in a town full of people, and Kyle was the ghost whisperer.

       "Hello?" I asked, my voice low as I made my way back into the kitchen and to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water. The salt from the chips made my mouth a little dry.

       "Bell, babe, can I talk to you?" Kyle questioned, his voice slightly shaking. I couldn't tell if it was because he was crying or something else, though I wouldn't know what else it would be.

       But he called me babe. Internal freak out mode starting, now.

       "Kyle, you are talking to me, technically," I replied, trying to lighten the mood up a little bit. That obviously didn't work out, though.