Keep this on the Down Low

𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟙 : 𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝕘𝕦𝕪𝕤

It was 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon and I had just woken up. My blinds were drawn underneath my black curtains, since I knew when I went to bed at four in the morning, I was going to need some sleep.

I checked my phone without getting up and saw I had 21 missed calls from Kwite. Groaning, I called him back. He picked up fairly quickly, and I braced for impact.

"BITCH!" he yelled, causing my eyes to squint and my speakers to buzz. "I've been calling you all day!"

"Tyler, we talked on the phone from eleven to four last night." It wasn't anything new. We were friends, friends talk on the phone for five hours straight all the time... right?

He laughed. "You a bitch, it was only two for me. That's why you need to move into my time zone."

I rolled my eyes, but it was true. Tyler wouldn't tell me what state he lived in, but I did know he was in the mountain time zone, while I was in the eastern, making us two whole hours apart.

"Anyway," he continued. "We were trying to film, but Brandon said he wouldn't do it without you."

My stomach gurgled the sound of death itself. "Look, I gotta grab some food, you guys join a call without me, I'll join asap."

Kwite was quiet for a few seconds. "Okay," he answered and hung up.

I decided to ignore the fact that he sounded slightly annoyed and make myself some breakfast. My mom greeted me when I came down the stairs.

"Good morning, sweetie!" she said, dragging out the pet name. My eyebrows furrowed, she never talked to me like this.

"Morning," I replied, fairly confused. I opened the fridge and got out some bread. Yes, my crack-addict mother kept her bread in the fridge, along with her cigarettes in the freezer. She claimed it 'kept the flavor'.

I shoved a few slices into the crusty old toaster and got out peanut butter and a knife while I had time to wait.

"I heard you... talking on the phone last night," my mother slurred. She was obviously drunk from her night out. "Who're you talkin' to?"

Taking my toast out, I mumbled. "Tyler." She spun around to look at me.

"Who the fuck is Tyler?"

I ignored her while I buttered my toast. She knows a forty-year-old man named Tyler that gets her drugs for free. I stared at her with the bitchiest look I could muster. "Don't worry, queen, it's not the Tyler that you're thinking of." I spun on my heels and walked back up to my room.

Closing the door behind me and sitting down at my desk, I took a bite from my toast and joined the Discord call.

"DAKOTA!" Kwite, Brandon, Quackity and Ani screamed, making my earbuds spaz out.

"Jeez you guys," I shook my head as Ani sent the picture of the sad cat/guinea pig with a square of butter into the group chat. Alex's contagious laugh rang in my head.

Brandon cleared his throat, a signal he was ready to start the video. "Okay, Kwite, you're the left, Ani is right." he said as he sent a screenshot of an r/niceguys post, basically just texts from men who think they're super nice to women.

"Why the fuck am I the nice guy?" whined Kwite. "What's going on?" he read from a text message.

"I just feel like shit and my mind won't shut up." Ani said. The rest of us clapped, as this was one of the few things she read through without pausing for an 'oh fuck' and restarting.

Kwite made a whimper. "I don't wanna read this!" He paused for a moment before starting again. "Aw I'm sorry!" he began. "Wish you weren't attached. We could get together and... take our minds off things!" he broke into laughter, mumbling a 'whatthefuck' under his breath.