(FEATURED)
It's been months since the unceremonious fall of Kimie Sato's older sister. The whole of Ridgerock High knows it, and by now, the majority have moved on. But Kimie still watches those who had a hand in it continue to walk free, and the mo...
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My laptop was acting funny. All day, I tried to get it to respond, but it only overheated, then crashed, and I had to shut it down.
Several times.
I was genuinely scared, because the last time something like this happened, I lost some important files, and I had an incomplete physics essay on it that was due the next day.
The only thing keeping me from panicking was the pack of salted chips in front of me. It felt compulsory for me to drive to Foodie after school to get some.
I had no idea how West knew I liked the chips so much, but I felt thankful to him for getting them for me the previous day. They kept me sane after the talk with Macy, and today they were keeping unwanted thoughts away and making my taste buds happy.
The only downside: they had me thinking about him, and in the most unusual way. I couldn't stop thinking about that look in his eyes yesterday, or the loving tone of his voice when he talked about his sister, or the way I overreacted after he'd been nothing but nice to me.
I leaned back into one of my fluffy pillows, sighing as I did so. I could feel the first stage of a headache, and I let my head sink deeper into the pillow while I waited for my laptop to come back on.
I felt terrible, mostly because a part of me had been expecting West to text me, to ask how I was doing, to ask if I was okay, but every time I looked into my phone, I was disappointed. The fact that I didn't see him all day wasn't helping, either, and I wanted to scream into an empty room.
After a while of just lying there and staring at my ceiling, I felt around me for my phone. When my hand met with it, about a million things ran through my head. And they were all questions no one could answer.
Should I call him? Should I text him? What if he doesn't pick up? What if he's still mad at me? What if, what if, what if?
The questions were halted when the phone rang, and I bolted up, quickly bringing the device to my face. My stomach felt tense, like something had been tied tightly around it, but when I saw the name on my screen, a weird feeling of disappointment traveled down my spine.
Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed the disappointment to the depths of my stomach and picked up the call.
"Sato."
The way Tybalt breathed my last name into the phone made the disappointment I was trying to suppress go down even lower. He sounded relieved, like me picking up his call was a breath of fresh air.
"Hey, Tybalt. What's up?" I let my shoulders relax, quietly drawing in another breath, and I found myself tracing around the edges of the takeout pack with my index finger.
Tybalt sighed. "You have no idea how bleh this place gets without you."
I smiled to myself. "Aw, that's sweet. But are you sure it's Tybalt Gutierrez speaking? 'Cause I know the real Tybalt knows how boring I am."
