Time With You Stands Still (bxb)

Chapter III.

When I get to school on Monday, Emma is waiting for me at my locker door. She is leaning against it, arms tightly folded across her chest and looking down at her phone. When I get close enough, she looks up, meeting my eyes.

Funny stuff. Thinking about it, maybe I shouldn't have ghosted her the entire weekend. Now she is going to bombard me with questions I really don't have the will to answer.

It's not even 8 am.

"Look what the cat dragged in," She says, crossing her arms. "Dude. Why the hell did you disappear like that on Friday?"

I untangle my backpack from my shoulder. "Good morning to you too."

"Blake," She says, short of patience. God, it's way too early for this.

I roll in the combination without looking at her. "After the party?"

"Yeah!" She exclaims, and a few people walking by glance at us. "I was worried sick about you! I've been texting you all weekend!"

I run a hand through my hair, feeling my cheeks get red. "Yeah... Sorry about that."

"That's what you have to say? Alright, Blake, just so we are clear, I had to call your mother to make sure nothing bad happened to you," She says, not really yelling but close to it. She shakes her head and then turns to her own locker, which conveniently, is placed right next to mine.

"Yeah, my mother mentioned something about that," I twist my head for a second to look at her. "I had just ordered an Uber."

I shove my backpack inside, reaching over to grab my Calc books. "And why didn't you tell us?" Emma says. "Olivia felt so bad leaving without you."

Oh.

Great, now I feel like dog shit. I had completely forgotten about Olivia. She was the DD.

Blake Brown. Has a degree in neglecting his friends.

"Shit," I say under my breath. I close my locker shut. "I'm so sorry."

"Listen, it's fine," She says, while digging around for her books. "Just, don't go AWOL on us like that again, a whole entire weekend, okay?"

I nod, and I'm about to answer back to her, when I glance in time to see Robin down the hall, walking in our direction. She is holding her car keys and her headphones all tangled up in one hand, and one of the buds is an inch away from the floor. And her feet move fast, like she means business.

"Oh, look," She says once she is close enough for us to hear her. "Turns out he is not dead."

"No, I am very much alive," I say, and Emma grins. "What's up?"

"Hey," Robin nods at me, and forcefully puts the swirling of her earphones on her right pocket. "Have you guys checked the newspaper today?"

"No," Emma says after shutting her locker. "I literally never do, you know that."

"Same," I say. "I always say I'm going to and then I forget."

"Why am I not surprised?" She says sarcastically, resting her shoulder against a locker.

"Yeah, as if there was anything interesting in there other than mindless gossip and the sports section," Emma says. "Which by the way, no one reads."

"Actually, that's not true," Robin says. "But, whatever. I didn't come here to talk about that. Have you guys not seen-? Well, you clearly haven't."

"Seen what?" I ask.

"The reason we might get the paper shut down," She says, and I detect some anger in her tone. "Jenna wrote an article about what went down with Nathan at the party this Friday."