Grace

Five

Toby had left by the next morning.

They went to study at Toby's house after school yesterday but they fell asleep. Grace said her house isn't a "good environment to be working in". Whatever she meant by that.

She placed a cup in the coffee machine, her eyes scanned the sheet of notebook paper he had scrawled his number and good neighbourhoods with apartments for sale onto. There was a note telling Grace that he had to run to Emma's.

This early? she thought.

She decided she wanted to move out soon. So she figured now was the perfect time to explore the new areas, her moving here and all.

Coffee in hand, Grace headed back to the spare room where her clothes from yesterday were. It was easy enough to locate a pair of black mom jeans, a band t-shirt and a cardigan she had bought from Brandy Melville back on 5th Avenue. It was one of her favourites.

She had always been the sort of girl who liked to take the reins on certain things, and visiting apartments in person rather than scouting online was one of them. You couldn't get a feel for a place via a virtual tour, let alone figure out if this was the area you wanted to spend all your time in. Today would be just as much about exploring neighborhoods as it would be looking at apartments.

Digging around in the kitchen drawer, she located the notepad she was searching for and slipped it into her bag.
Making her way back into the kitchen, she decided to make a to-go cup of coffee, finding one of Toby's insulated travel mugs. She'd just pressed down the power button when a knock came at the door.

Startled, she sat down the coffee mug and tentatively padded her way into the living room, pulling open the door to reveal him, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. She frowned.

"Toby isn't here" She stated.

He bit down on his lip as he eyed Grace, as if trying to gauge her mood from it.
If she hadn't already had her first cup of coffee, she would have slammed the door in his face. He could count himself lucky.

"I'm not here for Toby," he told Grace, his expression unreadable.