The Love Box

Chapter 8

I opened my eyes and saw Kai staring at me. His lips still on mine.

He pulled back.

“What is it?” I asked him. The box floor felt cold on my arms. 

“I just want to remember what you look like,” Kai told me. He held his head on his hand. “For when we have to depart.”

“We won’t be apart for long,” I told him. “We can meet up again tonight.”

“I would like that,” Kai told me.

Then I heard a man’s voice say through the vent, “Kai it’s almost dinner.”

“That’s my dad,” Kai said.

I laughed. “That was nice of him,” I said.

“Yeah,” Kai said as he sat up. “We better get to dinner.”

“Yeah,” I said as I sat up.

Kai held my hand while he sat on his side, and I sat on my side. “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” He said. Then he kissed my hand and turned towards his vent.

“Hey Kai,” I said.

“What?” He asked as he turned his head back towards me.

I crawled to him and smiled. He leaned toward me and I leaned toward him.

Right before he kissed me I said, “Stop reading my book.”

Then I turned around and crawled back to my vent.

“Thanks,” Kai said as he laughed. “You had me convinced you were going to kiss me.”

“That was the plan,” I told him as I crawled into the vent. “Bye.”

“Bye,” He said.

I crawled through the vent and looked through the opening. The laundry room was empty, so I opened the cover and crawled out.

Then I covered the vent up and turned to the other side. I watched as Kai crawled out of his vent. He waved to me, and I waved back.

Then I left the laundry room and headed to the cafeteria. I found my friends passing Suicide Hall, and I caught up with them.

We walked into the cafeteria and stood in line.

“Where did you go?” Courtney asked me as we grabbed our trays. “We went looking for you, but you weren’t in your room. The next thing we know you were with us again.”

“My mom and I had something to do,” I lied to them. I looked up to see my mom stood behind the counter serving the food. She was making up for skipping the morning shift.

“How were you with your mom when she’s right there?” Lizzy asked me as we walked to our table.

“Ok fine,” I told them. “I just needed some alone time.”

We sat at a table and Sadie said, “I would need some alone time too if my grandma died.”

After that all of us were silent. There was nothing to say. Not after what Sadie had said.

Every once in a while I looked over at the other side. I found Kai on my second glance. I targeted him when I looked over.

At times our eyes met, and we smiled at one another.

My friends and I finished, so we dumped our trays and walked to the library.

We sat in our chairs. All of us looked around the library from our chairs and eventually all our eyes fell on the other side. There was a huge group of boys running around the library. I couldn’t tell what game the played.