Where the Hurricane Meets a Blizzard

Chapter 15

         He still hasn’t texted.

         It’s been exactly one week since we flew back to Florida, and Jack still hasn’t sent a single text message. Not even a quick hi, how are you? or even something along the lines of I’ve decided that I don’t care about you anymore, sorry. At this point, I’d almost prefer the latter over what I’m getting now. But nope. I’ve gotten nothing from him. Zilch. Nil. Nada.

         I have, however, received over a hundred texts from my friends in Florida, wondering where I’ve been for the last two weeks. Twenty of those came from Katie alone, her texts ranging from curious to worrisome to downright angry. Nobody has heard a word from me since I left and it’s driving them crazy. Apparently life has been thrown off balance without the ever-famous Opal Finnegan keeping everything in check.

         As if it’s even my job to corral everyone in the direction that I want them to be going. Because they definitely can’t figure out what to do with themselves without my influence. Right.

         If there’s one thing I’ve realized since I’ve gotten back, it’s how much I truly hate how crowded the city is. There are all kinds of people roaming around who want to get all up in your business. And maybe there was a time when I liked having everyone elbowing their way in a crowd to walk beside me, but now I just want my space. And hence, I’ve been begging my dad not to make me go back to school all week.

         Honestly, I don’t know what I’m so afraid of. It’s not like I’m going to go back and everyone is going to hate me. Not openly, anyway. They’ll still expect me to be the same mean and ruthless girl who they know and cower from. And maybe that’s what I’m so afraid of. I don’t want to go back to school as the girl who everyone knows me to be. I’m not her anymore.

         My dad has been cool about letting me stay home so far, but I have a feeling that this was the last straw and next week he’s not letting me bow out anymore. Whenever he’s been asking me if I feel up to going back, I’ve been using the sick excuse, but even he knows that I’m no longer physically sick.

         Emotionally, however . . .

         I’ve never been the depressed type. I’m not a depressed kind of person. I’m a shop-it-out-and-treat-yourself-to-ice-cream-and-get-over-it kind of person. But even I have to admit, I’ve been showing all the symptoms this past week. Spending nearly every waking moment in bed in the dark watching anything and everything under the sun on Netflix, refusing food when my dad offers, and staying as far away from every social media as possible are probably not the healthiest things for me to be doing.

         But the honest truth is that I feel so drained of energy and excitement that nothing feels important anymore.

         Being away from Jack is making me realize just how hard I’ve fallen for him because now that he’s out of my life, he’s all that I think about. I don’t want to say that I’m beginning to become dependent on some boy, because I’m not. Eventually, I’ll find it in me to pick myself up and start living again, because I am Opal freaking Finnegan, and I rely on no one. Today is not that day, though. Today, I will continue to hide away in a bout of self-pity because I no longer have Jack, and no one is going to stop me.

         There’s a light rapping at the door and I can tell from the pattern of knocks that it’s Ryan. “Come in,” I say, casting my laptop to the side of my bed and pulling the covers up to my chin.

         The door is gently pushed open and Ryan’s dark head of hair emerges, poking through the crack first to make sure that it’s okay to come in. When he sees that I’m in virtually the same position that I’ve been in for the past week, he releases a long breath of air through his nose and makes his way to my bed, sitting beside me, the bed dipping down with his weight.