Skyline

Chapter 4: How am I supposed to know?

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Waking up is a normal thing. But waking up from a dreamless sleep is not. For me, anyway.

               So when I woke up on Sunday morning feeling refreshed after such a long week, I was partly relieved and alarmed. Relieved that after such a long time of always waking up from nightmares that I already got used to it, for the first time in a while I didn’t. I felt peaceful. Alarmed, because it meant that something changed and I don’t know what it is.

               I got up from bed and looked at the clock on my nightstand which informed me that it’s past eleven. I stayed up so late watching Uta no Prince-sama last night that I decided to sleep in.

               But then I remembered... Kuso! (Crap!) I have piano lessons today! Miss Sparks will come by two and I haven’t practiced the assigned piano scores. I continued to mentally curse myself as I rushed into the shower.

               Minutes later, I finished eating my brunch and quickly went back upstairs to put on my sneakers and to get my purse before going to buy the piano scores at Hank’s.

               But may I remind you that I am never lucky.

Ten minutes later, I felt it. God, why can’t these people give me the weekend at the very least?

I sensed someone burning a hole at the back of my head and shivered. I looked sideways and saw in my peripheral vision that someone is following me. I sped up my walking. I brought out my phone and saw from the reflection on the screen that it’s Scott, the green-eyed monster. My heart started to pound and I sped up even more.

               Where did he even come from?!

Relief washed over me when I saw that I’m nearing Hank’s store. I acted normally and crossed the road, entering the store quickly. Unfortunately, instead of Hank – the store owner and my mom’s friend – the new girl is working. I hid behind displays of Chopin’s works and dialled Arianne’s number but it went to voicemail. I tried calling her again but she won’t pick up.

I don’t want to call Giovanni. The last thing I need is for my father to go into hysterics while in a business meeting in Europe. I don’t want to add to the stress he’s in and when he finds out, he’ll assign additional ten body guards. He can be exaggerated. And I don’t want that. All my efforts of living as normal as I could in high school without them knowing who I really am will all go down the drain.

Then, I remembered a series of numbers from my memory. Anxiety kicked in but I’d rather face him than die early. I dialled his number and after only two rings, he picked up.

“Hello?” he greeted in a bored tone.

“Um, uh, hi. It’s me,” I mumbled, my eyes concentrated outside.