like salem anticipated, the week went by at a sluggish pace.
ciarán made her days at work worthwhile, and now that they weren't talking, each day went by slower than the last.
in the break room, she stared down at her diluted coke glumly, stirring the melting ice cubes around with her metal straw.
anne sat down next to her, "what's up with you and karen?"
salem let out a loud laugh, "his name's not karen!"
"his name's ciarán, i know, but tell me, what's wrong?"
salem frowned, her lips puckering slightly. she looked at anne, "how do you know something's wrong?"
anne sighed, "last week you were all, bubbly. lately, you've been looking like you're on the verge of breaking. so tell me, what's wrong?"
salem looked at her speechlessly. did her body language really convey that? "ciarán and i got in an argument over ryan." even saying his name made her wince.
"okay, so what did ryan do?"
salem bit her lip, "maybe i've been texting him, but he's been bugging me ever since he dumped me! i don't get it; what's the point of breaking up if you're just gonna beg for me back?" now, salem was frustrated. stirring her drink aggressively, the ice cubes clinked against the sides of the cup noisily.
anne finally took her drink away from her. "he sees that you're doing fine without him, and he wants you back. how did ciarán find out you were talking to ryan?"
salem played with her fingers, now that her hands were empty. "you know the pool party i told you about?" anne nodded. "well, i asked ciarán to get my phone while he was inside and he saw a text from ryan saying, 'can we talk again?'"
"so that's how this whole thing started." anne said in realization. then, her attitude changed, "that fucker's jealous!" she exclaimed.
salem tried to keep in her laugh, but ended up sputtering. "i don't think ciarán's jealous."
anne rolled her eyes, "don't even try to deny it. he doesn't want you talking to your ex; he wants you, salem."
"ciarán's not even talking to me!" salem scoffed, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically.
"why won't he?" anne's eyebrows drew together.
"i don't know," salem crossed her arms. "i miss him so much, but he's mad at me."
"did you tell him why you were texting ryan?" anne asked through a mouthful of salad.
salem sighed, "i tried to, but i didn't get to tell my full side of the story."
anne leaned closer to salem, her elbows resting on her thighs. now she really had her attention. "wait a minute, he didn't let you speak? geez, what a cunt!"
"first of all, don't call ciarán a cunt." salem scolded her. "second, he stormed off after i snatched my phone back. for some reason, my dumbass got mad at him, but i regret it so much." salem whined.
anne rolled her eyes. "just wait for him to come to his senses. i'm sure he can't be without you for that long."
☻☻☻
when salem got home, she immediately made her way toward the fridge. she opened it up, her eyes scanning the shelves for something to snack on. she finally settled on a bowl of strawberries.
she sat at the kitchen counter, looking at her notifications. she saw that she had gotten a text from ian on her way home.
bighead: you busy saturday night? salem's witchass 🤲🏼: no bighead: wanna have dinner with the boys at a fancy ass place 😌 salem's witchass 🤲🏼: is c**r*n gonna be there bighead: ... salem's witchass 🤲🏼: suddenly i'm busy saturday 😳 sry bighead: can yall at least talk to each other 😔 salem's witchass 🤲🏼: it's a no from me. bighead: c'monn bighead: we'll celebrate you becoming an official model salem's witchass 🤲🏼: i already did that bighead: GOTDAMN BITCH STOP BEING SO DAMN STUBBORN bighead: IK DAMN WELL YOU WOULDN'T PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE CIARAN salem's witchass 🤲🏼: ... maybe ... a few points were made ..., salem's witchass 🤲🏼: alright i'll go bighead: cool 😋 see u saturday
salem smiled at her phone. ian knew her too well, or maybe she just made it too obvious that she couldn't keep her eyes off of ciarán.
even then, after she stopped texting ian, she went onto his instagram to stalk his page.
wow, his page is lacking in content. she thought. it was as if he purposely wanted his stans to starve.
then, she went over to his twitter for more content, but his page was still dry.
suddenly, she felt like being cheesy and subtweeting him using his own lyric.
salems_chamber: miss u lots
but once she had the tweet typed out, she deleted all of it, deciding against it.
she still wanted to subtweet him, though, so she typed out some of the lyrics to loner by kali uchis.
salems_chamber: but if u don't want me now no boy i don't want u later 👿
she got very few replies, since she didn't have a huge following. the replies were just people yelling the next lyrics and expressing their love for kali.
of course ciarán saw the tweet, and it gave him an idea.
hopefully she wasn't busy friday night.
a/n:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
