For Real? ✅

Chapter 11

LEAH

The next day, I meet up with Tess for lunch, in college. I'd had a hectic day so far, and I expected lunch to lighten up the day.

In fact, it always does. Greg is so funny, that's he's almost like a cartoon character who walked straight out of the T. V.
Combined with Tess's sarcasm and Andy's eccentricity, I always find lunch ending too soon for my liking.

I see Tess sitting alone, for some reason, and she looks a bit relieved on seeing me. Greg and Andy are nowhere to be found.

"I have to talk to you", we both tell each other at the same time.
Next, I know, we're laughing again.

"You go first", I tell her, surprised that Tess had something to say.

"Oh okay," Tess says, looking hesitant. She chews on her lip, probably wondering how to start.

"Can you tell me what exactly happened at the party, once I passed out? Especially about what Greg was doing...", she inquires.
I'm a bit surprised by her question.

"You passed out. Greg and I took these amazing selfies of you..." I start.

"Yeah well, I know that. I saw his insta story the next day..." She'd replied, shaking her head tiredly.
"What happened after that?"

I look back at her, confused.
"We made you sit on a couch. Then, I went to watch the 'Truth or Dare' and other stuff that was happening."

"What about Greg?" Tess asks quickly.

"I don't know where he went after that. I assumed that he was with you", I inform her.

Tess looks puzzled.
"Did you know where Andy was?", she asks.

"Nope never saw him after that."
I say, then continue, "Why though?"

Tess seems to be deep in thought.

I take this chance to eat as much as I could. Once Tess came out of her reverie, it would be hard to eat, as she'll want to hear my point of view of the whole situation.

Finally, she answers,
"I heard Greg talking to Andy, on Sunday morning. He was crying, Leah, about something that he had done, at the party."

She pauses to take a deep breath, and her voice is even shakier when she continues.
"And the worst part? He desperately wants to hide it from me. I don't know what or why he's acting like this.", she ends, looking lost.

"Greg isn't the kind of guy to cheat on you", I tell her in a soothing voice. This news comes off as a bit confusing to me too.

"Maybe he's planning a surprise for you, and that had backfired or something" I suggest, but Tess ignores me.

"He still seems to love me like always," she says softly, not really talking to me.

"Maybe he's going to propose to you! Oh my god, Tess, I'm so excited for you!" I squeal, causing a few people near us to give me strange looks.

Tess's stare is enough to know that I am an idiot. "We've just started dating! Oh wow, I can't even believe that I'm answering that dumb of a question."

"Well, then I don't know," I say, being indifferent. "Why don't you confront him?"

"I don't want to break what we have. I know that he loves me enough to tell me the truth when he has to."

With a shrug, I proceed to eat my delicious sandwich. I leave Tess to her thoughts, while my mind moves to Adam.

I glance through the cafeteria and find him with his group of popular friends.
He's wearing a white t-shirt, his muscles looking more prominent than ever. His blond hair looks fluffy like he'd washed it today.

He seems to be cracking jokes to a bunch of his friends.
It must have been really funny, because they all burst into laughter, the sound echoing throughout.

I sigh. How could it be that I had been staring into his eyes only last evening?

Tess comes out of her reverie suddenly,
"I forgot to ask you, how did you come back from the party?"

She seems to have forgotten that I had something to say.

"Adam left me sleeping in one of the bedrooms and Greyes got me back to her apartment", I tell her, irked by the fact that she was still in her thoughts.

"Greyes? Your so-called new neighbour? Why her?", Tess demands, instantly looking rather hostile.
I notice that she heard only one word of my sentence, and that being Greyes.

"She told me there were a bunch of guys looking at me, so she felt it wasn't safe to leave me behind." I shrug, taking another bite of my sandwich.

Tess looks at me, her mind seemed to be somewhere else. "Really? I didn't expect her to play the part of a friendly neighbour... Very unlikely."

She's still muttering to herself.

"Do you hate her because she's a drug dealer?", I ask Tess, "Because that's a really lame reason to hate a person."

Tess looks startled. "No, I hate her because she will go to any length to sell her drugs!
I heard she blackmails, tricks-"

"You heard? Is it another rumour?", I cut her off. Tess believes rumours too quickly for her own good.
And she thinks I'm naive.
I haven't gotten her back for that yet.

"I-yeah, but so what? Rumours can be true!" she counters.

I shake my head at her sadly.

She's eyeing me with pity.

"I'd be really careful around Greyes if I were you." She says wistfully.

"I really wouldn't believe any rumour if I were you", I counter coldly.

Tess ignores me as usual, falling deep into her thoughts again.