Untimely Love (Book 3)

♤♠Interlude♠♤

This is long overdue but I wasn't happy with it until now and this weeks has been a mess.

But... I WENT TO THE AGUST D CONCERT ON 4/29 IN JERSEY FT JIMIN IN VIP. It was literally the best night of my life and I'm devastated that I can't see him on stage again for a while and I wanna replay the entire night again and again. That's my baby daddy, big daddy, my suga, honey, sweetie pie, Yoongi boongi woongi, loml. God, I miss him lmfaoooo.

But enough of that; as a heads up, this is another one of those chapters that switch POVs. It's a little something to show the time passing instead of doing a huge jump. Hopefully, it's effective.

♤♠♤

Beginning of January

♤ARIANA♤

"Charlotte called." It was breakfast, we were setting the table, and she hadn't looked at me when she said that.

Mom continued setting out plates of steaming food and fresh-cut fruit on the dining table between us. I bit the inside of my cheek, knowing this wasn't going to end well.

"Next time you want to use my phone, ask for it."

I waited for her to finish, maybe threaten me. She didn't.

Clearing my throat, I snagged a grape from the large batch of fruit in the bowl. It took me half a minute for me to eat it. She still hadn't said anything.

I couldn't take it anymore. I asked, "Why did she call?" There was hope in my voice, and so blatantly obvious it made me cringe.

Still, it had been barely five days since I'd called Chris and we had that brief conversation. I've been replaying the event in my head endlessly since. All the things I didn't say, what I wanted to say, things I could've said better.

She hummed in response. That was it. A simple, undisclosed hum. What the hell did that mean?

I stared at her with my eyes wide. My mom didn't look at me even though I knew she felt my gaze on her. I rolled my eyes, looking around the room. Her silence made me anxious, and soon enough I was fidgeting—bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet.

"I wanted to talk to Chris, that's all," I said, my voice low. I glanced over my shoulder discreetly to make sure my dad wasn't in the room.

"About what?" Mom asked casually, still not looking at me.

I went back to setting the utensils down next to each plate. "Stuff. It was only for five minutes. We'd planned on talking, remember? It wasn't anything weird."

We both knew what weird meant in this context.

"Stop sneaking around doing things if you don't want it to look weird."

She wasn't angry. It was the only thing I could focus on. I couldn't tell whether she approved of what I did or hated that I didn't ask first. Might be both.

"Okay." I wasn't doing things the right way. A part of me was still stuck in the past where I never told her things. It was all I knew, but I was trying to change. Not much time had passed, but I was trying to do better. It only got a fraction easier each day. A very small one at that.

She glanced up at me. "You know your father doesn't like him."

I had no clue why I smiled, but I couldn't stop and it made me blush. For the past few days, whenever the topic of Chris came up—or anyone of the male species—Dad got all defensive and said some shady shit. He didn't always say Chris's name but we knew who and what he was talking about.