Sweet Cherries

Ch. 8

Ch. 8 *Sabrina*

It's been a couple of days since I last saw. I have to admit, when I woke up Adrian was gone, I was a bit sad. I thought I'd see him in the morning and we would talk or something, but clearly that's not the case. I'm not sure what we would have talked about, but it would have been nice. It's probably better that he left so early.

I read his note, which I thought was a really nice and cute thing of him to do. Plus it cheered me up a bit knowing he thought about me before he left. That's such a weird thing to say.

Regardless of his note or whatever, Adrian's gone and now I'm all alone...again.

To be honest I'm confused. I thought I didn't like him. I thought he didn't like me. So why are we being friendly? Why did he confess?

I let out a loud groan before falling onto my bed. I pick up Chili, my pink stuffed dinosaur. "Chili, aren't I supposed to want to fuck the person I like?"

Chili stares back at me with dead eyes. It was almost as if he's asking how the fuck is a toy dinosaur supposed to know.

In times like this, I need Kiah to guide me, she always knows what to do. Well most of the time and sometimes the results are great.

As lay in my bed, gently hugging my pink dinosaur, the image of a familiar ivory skinned boy pops up in my mind.

I hear a soft knock.

"Come in," I answer in response to the knock.

Less then a second later, the door slowly opens revealing my sister in a long square necked pink sundress with ruffles and thick straps. Her long sisterlocs put into a half up-half down style.

"Hi Sabrina," Sophie looks up from her phone for a second. She looks around as if she's trying to find something. Wait, does she know Adrian was here? My heart races at the thought. How am I supposed to explain that.

"Are you looking for something?" I cautiously ask, make sure my voice was as neutral as possible.

Sophie shakes her head, "no, your room just looks different. Anyways, I'm going to a get together for work and I'm taking you as my plus 1."

I narrow my eyes at my sister. What made her think that I, an jet lagged awkward 18 year old, would want to hang with her coworkers, "what makes you think I'd want to hang with y'all?"

She puts her hand under her chin and smiles, "I'm forcing you to come since you've been inside all week. That's not healthy."

"Ugh fine I'll come, but you owe me one."

~~

We've finally arrived at the park for the get together. It a pretty large park with a  playground and splash pad for kids and 2 large gazebos. There are tons of green trees and grasses growing and small squirrels and rabbits running around.

The gazebo near us had a large crowd of people— I'm assuming they are Sophie's coworkers. Surprisingly, the crowd is more diverse than I expected.

"Sis, I thought your job was going be white and old as hell."

As we were driving here, Sophie explained a little bit her work place. She basically an intern counselors at the elementary schools in a couple districts over. During her undergrad, she began volunteering there (which I knew) and once she graduated, she was hired as an intern (which I didn't know). She's currently working on her Master's, but doesn't know if she'll stay with the district is she's offered a position.

I'm pretty sure she told me that this potluck was just a gathering of the school counselor's department. So obviously the counselors, but also the  volunteers, interns, temps, and what not.

Sophie slightly chuckles at my remark as she hands me the drinks, "I'm luckily aren't I?" Her words are followed by the "thud" of the trunk. "actually, we have a couple of teen interns you can talk to. I don't want you to die of boredom."

"If you knew I'd get bored, maybe you shouldn't have dragged me along." I mutter under my breath

"What did you say?"

She wasn't supposed to hear that. I turn towards my sister with a sweet smile on my face, "Nothing."

"It must have been the wind," she says, pinching my cheeks. I scrunch up my face and swat her hands away. She tries pinch them again, but I quickly dodge and quickly rush towards the gazebo.

I place the case of Coca cola down on a picnic table and turn towards Sophie. She's a couple of feet away from me, so I stick my tongue out at her. In response she sticks her tongue out at me.

"Sophie, you made it."

Sophie immediately stops and turns towards the voice, "Hey Kamari, of course I did," Her voice sounds weird. It's sort of sweet and kind— the complete opposite of how she talks to me or Cory, "this is my little sister Sabrina and Sabrina this is my friend and coworker Kamari." Instead of pinching my cheeks, like I expected, she places her hands on my shoulders and turns me around.

Once I'm facing the "Kamari" guy, I understand my sister's change in demeanor. Man is fine as hell. Tall, deep brown skin, strong cheeks, chiseled jaw, faded buzz cut.

"Hi Kamari." I greet him with a small wave and sneak a look at my sister. Along with her voice, her whole demeanor changed. Sis is even twirling her hair. So this is her "flirty" middle and she went into for this guy.

"So you're Sophie's sister, I've heard about about you. I promise it's all been good things." He responds with a smile. I mentally take a picture of his gorgeous smile.

After that, I follow Kamari and Sophie around as they greet everyone else. We grab some food— my plate consisted of a burger, potato salad, roasted corn, a kebob, and chips— and sit down at a picnic table.

"So, how do y'all know each other?" I ask once we're seated.

"We were both in the POC in Psych club in college." Kamari answers.

We continue to chat for about 20 minutes. After a while, I was starting to feel like a third wheel. Plus they started talking about work, school, and other things I couldn't relate to.

I pull out my phone and tap on the Instagram app. The first post on my feed was mirror selfie of 3 girls I went to school with in Switzerland. Judging by their outfits and caption, I think they were are some party or club. This is a reminder to go through and detox my Instagram followings.

Out of curiosity, I go to the comments section.

F.Romero: 🔥🥵

Faraz. Aka my shitty ex boyfriend and I loosely use "boyfriend" as a title. See I thought we were dating, but according to him I was being delusional and it was all in my head. Mind you, we went on dates, snuck around, held hands, kissed, or whatever.

Even though I hate him. I resent him for wasting my time, energy, and love. My heart races when I see the handle and his profile picture. I don't know why my heart is racing, I knew he was going to comment. But seeing his face...

My thumb givers over the name. I know I shouldn't press it, but my thumb inches closer and closer to the name.

Just as I was going to press, an instagram chat notification shows up on my screen. 

A.drian: hey, u busy?

My heart skips a beat as read those 3 words over and over again. Adrian justed messaged me.

My thumbs hover over the keypad. I know I shouldn't respond, but I do anyways.

***
A/N

Heyyyyy... Long time, now see. Over the past few months, this book has blown up like crazy. I couldn't keep y'all hanging so I wrote another chapter. I hope you like it, I kind of had writers block.

I can't believe this book has gotten over 1k reads!!!! And I can't believe how many people put it on their reading lists! Please if you enjoy the book, don't forget to like, comment, and follow, I'd really appreciate it! 💖