Manifesting | kotlc

- chapter - sixteen -

I stood in front of the mirror, assessing how looked, a lot longer than I wish I had. I knew it shouldn't matter, because I was simply going to hang out with Arrowe as friends, but the way Blythe and Lyra had talked about it like a date made me believe I had to act like it was one. Which, in hindsight, was stupid. 

"Nova!" my mother shouted with impatience. "If you take any longer he's going to think you stood him up!"

I rolled my eyes, my mother also on the train of making me believe it is a date. I could only hope Arrowe understood it really was just sitting down and eating dinner together as friends. We were even going to have the little get together at my parent's restaurant, which would definitely be my last choice for a date. Especially my first one. 

I decided that I looked as good as I was going to and made the quick trip to the bottom of the stairs, letting out a sign at my mother's irritated look. "Mom," I tried to reason, "we're not supposed to meet for another thirty minutes anyways." 

She ignored me and gestured for me to follow her to our Leapmaster, and I decided to simply follow along in hopes of avoiding an argument ensuing. While I loved my mom, and genuinely appreciated the amount of effort and care she put into our relationship, there were times I wish she would let loose a little. She could be extremely assertive and despite the fact she tried to pretend it wasn't true, she cared a lot about outside opinion of her. Especially with the fact she was talentless. She didn't like the thought of people not liking her, and it made it so she always had to be five steps ahead of everyone else.

This meant I had to be about fifteen minutes early to meet up with a boy I wasn't even trying to impress, because I didn't want to date him. "I'll help you out while I wait for him to get here," I told her, smiling forcefully when she realized he didn't choose to come fifteen minutes early as well. 

"No, pick any table you want so that when he walks in, he can see you there," she instructed before walking over to the kitchen where I noticed my dad talking to the head chef, Gower. I rolled my eyes as I picked one of the booths which would normally fit around four people, and I simply watched all the customers sitting around me. There was a pretty average amount, my parents usually got a bigger rush later on into the night, but if I didn't practically live here I would think it was busy. It was crazy to me how easily my parents navigated the work, no one ever left unsatisfied, service and food wise. 

After waiting for around ten minutes, Arrowe finally showed up a few minutes before we were supposed to meet up. I waved him over and he grinned as he moved to the other side of the booth and took his seat. "Hey, Nova," he greeted, smiling. 

"Hey," I replied, shyly. I didn't really know what to say, but luckily he decided to start the conversation. 

"How was your day?" he questioned. "You're in fifth level, right?" 

I nodded, smiling. "Yeah," I told him, smiling. "And it was a weird day, honestly," I added on, slightly chuckling as I thought back to my bizarre lunch. I still couldn't believe the way that Serena had acted towards me. It made me slightly wary of Eamon, which honestly my friendship with him was weird enough anyways. 

"Well, hopefully tomorrow is less weird for you," Arrowe replied, pulling me out of my thoughts. "So you only have one level before you leave?" 

I opened my mouth, but wasn't sure what to reply. Because, technically, he was wrong. But as far as anyone knew, he was right. "That's how it's looking," I told him, because it wasn't technically lying. Just evading the truth. 

Lying by omission, my brain tried to say, but I squashed the thought so much even a telepath would have trouble finding it. 

"Have you thought about what you might want to do after you're out of school?" he questioned.