Sing For Me

Chapter Sixteen: Stunned

My room smells like Abbey's best perfume and the two-day-old damp washing that I never bothered to hang out. I kill a couple of hours lying on my bedroom floor and staring at the small flecks of fly poop on my plain white ceiling.

Or... it feels like a couple of hours. Maybe it is just for ten minutes.

I gnaw at my lower lip, worrying it between my teeth.

I shouldn't have gotten so grumpy and defensive with Abbey. I know that already. But even so, it's still going to take me another couple of hours to pull my head out of my ass and go apologise.

I drag a pillow off my bed, stifle my face with it and scream into it.

Because... stuff it. It's not every morning you wake up from the best kiss in your life only to realize that you're never going to see the guy again.

And I figure that surely a third-degree wallow is warranted in this kind of situation.

I pull the pillow off my face and narrow my eyes, wondering if I have enough money in my account for brownies and ice cream. Wondering if I could get away with buying them and sneaking them into my room without Abbey getting suspicious and starting to ask more questions...

Then, there's a knock at my door.

I jump back into bed and pretend to be asleep as my bedroom door opens a crack – not with the same ferocity as earlier, but by the same hand.

"Hey. Uhh, Meg?" Abs speaks, but there's a weird, shaky quality about her voice. It was exactly like that time we were at the zoo and she was super-close to a baby red panda, and she was ridiculously over-the-top excited but she didn't want to jump up and down or say anything too loud in case she spooked it and it ran away.

It's the kind of behavior that, from Abbey – who usually can't contain her excitement to save herself – is the absolute epitome of suspicious.

"Yes?" I answer, yawning, rolling over, and then rubbing my eyes a little.

"You wouldn't consider, like, going on a date with Eric, would you?"

I sit up in my bed, looking at her incredulously.

My mouth just about hits the floor, and my palm twitches with an instant desire to slap my forehead.

I swear, all the facepalm moments of my life are Abbey-related.

"What part of hell-no, never-in-a-million-years, besides-nothing-actually-happened-anyway do you not understand?" I try to keep my voice calm, but my eyes are probably about as wide as saucers.

Abbey clears her throat. "But what if–"

"One hundred percent, positively, NO," I say. But then my pulse suddenly spikes again, as the door swings further open and I see what looks like my phone clutched in her annoying little hand.

My heart drops.

My face darkens. And Abbey gives me her best nervous smile in response – the kind with full teeth that makes her look half constipated.

I grab the nearest thing to me ­– my teddy bear Stanley – and start to wind up my throwing arm. "What. Did. You–"

Abbey cuts me off, looking at her nails like she's trying to fake me out, though we both know she's poised and ready to rebuff my teddy bear attack at a seconds' notice. "Well, anyhow," she states, "I'm sorry to burst your cynical little bubble, Meg, truly. But it's a little too late to pull out now. That lady from last night – Blue, I think her name was? Well, she said that every camera in that place caught him ogling you like a lovesick puppy and that you're now obligated to–"