Find It Again

Chapter Five

ALYSSA

I heard my phone ring with a very familiar tune. It was Lydia's assigned ringtone. "Hello?" I spoke with a sleepy voice.

"Hey, where are you?" There were a couple seconds of silence. " You didn't forget, did you?" She asked in a half nervous and half frustrated voice.

"Forget what?" I asked her, a bit scared of how she might react.

"You did forget. Alyssa, we were supposed to go hang out today. Do you still want to?"

"Oh Lydia I'm sorry. Meet me at Jo-Jo's in ten minutes then." I told her.

I got to Jo-Jo's and the waitress took me to a table, in which Lydia was already waiting for me.

"There you are, it's about time." She put her phone down and glared up at me. "Where have you been? And how are you? I have a lot to talk to you about." This was typical Lydia. She could never stop talking because she always had something to talk about, so this didn't come as a surprise to me at all. I just nodded and sat on the opposite booth from her at the table.

"I'm fine, and you?" I asked.

"That's good. I'm good. So I've got a bunch to tell you. But first, I'm having a party tonight and I need you to go. Please," She blabbered on. "Please g-"

"Okay, I'll go." I quiclky cut her off. I couldn't stand her begging. I loved her, and I would do anything to make her happy. And to make her shut up.

"Really?!" Although she tried to hide it, I could tell that she was about to burst from her excitement. "Seriously?! We're going to have so much fun, trust me. I know it's been forever since you've been to a party." She said.

And I knew what she meant too. All summer I had been locked up in my room. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't eat. I didn't sleep. I had fallen in love with Jake, and I thought he'd loved me too. But to realize that all we had, or what I though we had, was all fake; That hurt more than anything. So when I found out about Jake and Bradley, I didn't go straight to Lydia. Instead, I went to my favorite place, which was this beautiful lake that was sort of abandoned. Well, to me it was abandoned because no one ever went there, except for me.

I'd stayed there for hours, then when I got home I would go straight to my room. I had stayed in there for days, trying to wrap my head around how all of this happened. I never answered any calls or messages from anyone but my mom. Finally, Lydia stopped by my house to see me. After I'd explained everything that happened, she sat down and thought for a while. Then she had told me to get out of this sad mess and stop thinking about all of it, and I yelled at her and told her to leave. How could I just forget that something like this ever happened?

I called her a couple days later to appologize, because even if she wasn't some gentle snowflake and didn't take things like this too seriously, I still felt bad. She'd had plenty of parties during this summer and went to a lot of other parties in which she had invited me to come along, but I refused. So that would explain why she got so excited when I told her that I would go.

"So don't worry about helping me set up and get ready because I've got that taken care of. Ryan is going to help me out." Ryan was Lydia's twin brother. I knew that he'd had a crush on me since forever because Lydia would always tell me. I wouldn't have pegged him as a shy guy. He was more of a player. But Lydia said he was too shy to ever ask me out. I wouldn't have gone out with him anyways because he was my best friend's brother, and that would just make things really awkward. That, and I just really didn't like him like that.

"So I'll see you at seven?" She asked.

"Yeah I'll see you later then." I wanted to tell her about what happened at the beach a couple days ago, but she'd say that I was being dramatic. She would tell me to forget it and to stop pushing guys away. No wonder you're still single, she would say. But I would usually just ignore her.