The Hidden Pocket {ruel van dijk}

chapter sixteen.

As soon as Ruel drops me off at my apartment, I run directly to my bedroom and sit down on the floor, opening my laptop to FaceTime my mom.

As soon as the first call fails, I remember that she is flying back to San Francisco right now, of course she wouldn't answer my call.

She still has about thirteen hours left to her flight, and by time she lands and gets home, I'll be asleep. Frustratedly, I sprawl out on my floor and grab a pillow from my bed, clutching it into my stomach. I feel too anxious to wait all night to ask, too eager to wait until the morning.

I hope with everything in me that I will be able to go to LA with Ruel, but I also know with everything in me that my parents won't let me. They barely know who he is, and I would be traveling with strangers. The more I consider the idea, the more trivial and silly it sounds.

I spot my cello standing in the corner of my room. I stand up slowly, making my way towards it and bringing it with me to the velvet chair against my wall. I take off my sun hat, throwing it onto my bed then pulling my hair up into a ponytail.

I gingerly play a few chord progressions, then go into a nimble piece that I learned last week. It's a fragile song, and I play it with the utmost care.

I play for what seems like an hour more, purposefully playing morose pieces, they seem to be pretty fitting. I stretch my fingers when I'm done, going to my wardrobe to pull out a pair of leggings and a large sweater. When I'm done getting dressed, I make a quick cup of hot tea in my kitchen and bring it with me into the living room, turning Netflix on the TV. After minutes of scrolling through movies, I choose a specifically sappy romance movie.

I can't seem to stop being the antagonist of my own emotions.

I find myself quickly bored of the movie, yet sitting through the entirety of it nevertheless.

Through the exasperatingly charming love interest of the movie, I can only see Ruel. He seems to be in everything I see these days. I see him in my foyer every time I walk through it, thinking of the time we danced there together. I see him in my favorite café, thinking of the first time I felt truly angry at him. I see him every time I pass a stoplight, thinking of the time he kissed me under one.

I really need some friends.

It can't possibly be healthy for me to sit here day after day and drown in my feelings for him and not vent to someone. But I've learned to manage. Even in San Francisco, I didn't have the best of luck when it came to friends. I had one 'friend'. We never talked outside of school. I'm convinced we only ate lunch together and walked to classes together because neither of us had anybody else to be with and being lonely was more suffocating than upholding a fake friendship. People thought we were best friends, but I truly only knew her name and that her favorite subject in school was math. We never talked after I moved away. I hope she found somebody else to sit with at lunch so she won't be lonely anymore.

But now I have Ruel, and I shouldn't ask for more. He's been my lifeline since I moved here. Thinking of what would happen if we stopped being friends worries me far too much to keep dwelling on it.

So I don't dwell on it, instead I watch movie after movie until I fall asleep late at night.

:

When I wake up the next morning, there's a knot in my neck and the tv is still playing movies quietly. I open up the drapes in my living room and draw in a deep breath.

I'm zoned out out, staring at the city below me, when I hear my laptop ringing from the other room. I quickly rush into my room and grab the laptop, setting it on my lap as I sit on my bed .