LINDSAY’S POV (a few weeks later)
I never called Vic back that day. The day that I told him I loved him. I wasn’t ready to be questioned about why I said it then, and why I had said it before and denied it. I wasn’t ready to explain myself. In fact, I hadn’t really talked to him in about two and a half weeks, besides the usual “good morning, how are you” or “good night, I’ll talk to you tomorrow” texts. I always told him that I would call him, but I never did. I just didn’t have the heart to, I wasn’t prepared.
It was around 6:41 on a Thursday morning. I had the day off from work (about a week ago I got a job at the Dunkin Donuts right up the street from my house), and I should’ve been sleeping while I had the chance. But for some reason, I couldn’t sleep at all. I had gotten only three hours of sleep, and I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t. All I knew was that I was going to regret it later.
As I laied there in my bed, staring at the ceiling, I thought about how much I wanted to go back to California. Not entirely because of Vic, I mean I did want to see him; but because I missed the beauty of it. The big cities that slowly transformed into beautiful, enchanting forests. Also because I wanted to see my cousin Jhonathan. I hadn’t actually seen him since he moved to San Diego with his boyfriend a few years ago. We hardly ever talked anymore, either. He was too caught up in his job (he was one of those “where to eat/sleep/swim” critics), and caught up in his boyfriend…literally.
I sat there and thought for almost a good two hours, just thinking about random things, all of those things leading to Vic. I could never get him out of my head, I was always thinking about him. The more I thought about him, the more I missed him. The more I missed him, the more I wished I could be with him. The more I wished I was with him, the more I hated myself for not staying with him last month.
To distract myself, I decided to go downstairs and get something to eat. My dad also had the day off, and he was doing the smart thing and sleeping in. That lucky bastard, able to sleep in and I can’t, I thought to myself as I went down the stairs. My cat Jesse followed me close by, knowing that I would be feeding him as well.
I went into the kitchen and decided to start cooking my food first. I took a blueberry bagel out of the bag and put it in the toaster. While they cooked, I took the container of cat food from under the sink, opened it, and stood in front of Jesse’s food dish, teasing him. He circled around my feet, looking up at me and meowing.
“Oh, you want this?” I said to him as I shook the container. He sat down right in front of my feet and meowed at me. “How bad do you want it?” Jesse gave me a loud, irritated meow, followed by a growl. “Don’t you growl at me, you bastard,” I said as I kneeled down and poured some food into his dish. I put the container back under the sink, went to the fridge and grabbed the cream cheese, grabbed a butter knife from the silverware drawer, and waited for my bagel to cook.
As I waited by the sink for my bagel to cook, I looked out the window and watched the neighbor’s dog play with a tennis ball. I never met the new neighbors; they had moved in about a month ago when I was in California. There were always people moving in and out of that little green and white-trimmed house, and I had never met any of them. My friend Emilee’s grandparents, who lived two houses away from me, owned that house, and they were always renting it out to people. The longest that anyone had stayed there was about a year. It was said that the house was haunted, and that things would happen that would make the people staying there leave. I wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not, for I had never spent one night in that house, let alone set foot in it.
Suddenly, the bagel popped out of the toaster, practically scaring me half to death. I took the bagel out of the toaster, put it on a piece of paper towel, spread the cream cheese on it, and went into the living room to eat. Right as I sat down, I got back up, remembering that I forgot to get myself a drink. I went into the pantry and grabbed myself a glass, poured some milk into it, and went back into the living room to eat. Jesse followed me into the living room, and jumped into my lap as I sat in Dad’s spot on the couch.
