Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-41-

Once Delilah got back home and locked up her Chevy, she was bombarded with questions from her little brother that was sitting on the porch swing. He had a mischievous smirk on his face, like he knew where she'd been last night.

"What happened to you?" He asked, blatantly staring at her like she'd grown an extra head.

Her hair was tangled on the ends and messily tossed over her shoulders, the only combing they'd gotten being from her fingers when she tried to rake through the waves that turned to knots during the night. Her shirt was sort of pushed over to one side-the same one she had slept in last night- and her shorts from the day prior were sort of riding up her thighs like something, or someone like Zach speculated, messed them up purposely.

"Nothin'."

"What did you do?"

"Like I said, nothing." She said as she made her way inside, mumbling the words 'nosey ass' beneath her breath. The house was unusually cold, a bitter bite to the air in the hallway and no sign of her dad or their dogs. Assuming they were all in the backyard, she made her way down to her bedroom and got a change of clean clothes and then went to the bathroom and took a shower that she hoped would calm her on-edge nerves.

Luckily for her, the hot water beating down on her skin did a number on helping calm her down and give her a sense of peace, however that short stretch of serenity was interrupted when her phone started ringing from its spot on the bathroom counter. Inside her head, she cursed herself and wondered why she didn't just leave it on her bed like she originally intended. After a few long, torturous seconds she decided to drown her phone out and call whoever was disrupting her peace back once she got out of the shower. After it stopped ringing and her music unpaused, her small personal concert was back on for another 25 minutes before she finally emerged from the shower.

After throwing on some clothes and blow-drying her hair until it was mostly dry, she picked up her phone and was met by an entire collection of texts and calls from her best friend, Acadia. Scrolling through what felt like a hundred texts that spanned from noon yesterday to five minutes ago, she tapped the latest message from Cadi and unlocked her phone.

Cadi Rose 🫡

don't tell me you forgot

Delilah

pick up ya damn phone

y ain't u answering me??

ur with that boy aren't u 🤨

bitch pick up, tf

Delilah

What?

Cadi Rose 🫡

where r u??

you were supposed to be here like 5 mins ago

Delilah

I'm almost there

She sent that text knowing damn well she was still standing in her bedroom, nowhere near there or even ready to go. In her defense, she did have a good fifteen minutes until she was even supposed to meet Cadi at the lake, which was way more time than it took to grab her things and get there. After grabbing her purse and dropping her phone inside, she grabbed her keys from the inside pocket and headed outside to her Silverado.

—
"It had something to do with that cute redheaded boy, didn't it?"

Delilah sighed and sat down in the grass beside Cadi and pulled her hands into her lap, her nails digging into the palm of her right hand almost hard enough to draw blood. Her nails left little crescent moon shaped indents on her palm. Inside her head she cussed herself out for agreeing to go out with Acadia today because she knew that this is exactly what she was gonna do- interrogate her because she hadn't replied to every single one of her friend's 246 text messages, 91 calls and 14 voicemails instantly yesterday.