Stumbling (H.S. / A.U.)

Chapter 52

SURPRISE SURPRISE, hey, hi, hello you guys.... so from now on I will be releasing one chapter every single day until Stumbling is over. I HOPE YOU ARE READY OMG.

Tuesday, October 3rd

Riley's POV

I doodle on my notes, pretending to pay attention to whatever the professor was lecturing about in my History course, but paying attention was not on today's schedule.

I needed to find a way to talk to Autumn and fix things. I know if she is also going through a break up that she is dealing with a lot on her plate and losing a friend right now is not something that either of us want to do.

Harry texted me yesterday about being gone till Thursday and working back at the East Coast, more or less. He tried beating around the bush at first but eventually in the conversation he let things spill. I told him I was totally understanding of the situation, and I was trying to be despite my worry, but that he should text me to let me know when they leave and get home so that I can see him.

I want to tell myself I miss my old life, before things were this hectic, but that was so long ago it's hard to think about. Life has been a rollercoaster since high school, college just isn't better.

The students in the lecture hall all start to shuffle around grabbing bags, putting away notebooks and pencils, and preparing to leave and I guess my brain had bypassed the entire class today. I retained nothing from what I heard today, but that's okay I can just grab the notes from someone else later. I am on a mission today.

I quickly put away my things and snatch up my bag before booking it out of class and heading right towards stop number one.

Fuck. I hope that Bella girl isn't working. That would just be the topper on a week of blah.

When I get into Dante's of course I see the pink haired girl greeting a table and I make sure to swerve away and head directly over to the bar in hopes of avoiding her.

"Hi, can I place a to go order for as quick as possible please?" I ask the bartender.

Luckily he seemed to understand that I was trying to hurry and he helped me right away. I didn't end up having to wait more than about fifteen minutes and only once did Bella attempt to come over to the bar, but I was pretending to be on my phone and that solved any potential crisis of her attempting to communicate with me.

I don't even know if Bella dislikes me or knows that Harry and I are now a thing. I told myself not to dislike her because Harry was the idiot who did the phone number exchange, but then Harry told me the truth. I guess it's just a lingering feeling of jealous that pangs me when I see her and I don't want to have to deal with it. So, like most of my problems, I keep pushing it further down.

The bartender comes back and brings me the bag of goods and I give him a gracious tip (I guess actually Harry and the boys do since that is their money realistically) and make my way to where I parked in the campus lot.

"Goddamn do these things smell foul." I talk to myself as I place them on the passenger seat and slide into the drivers. Autumn better be thankful at least a little bit because the pure vinegar hot smell that was radiating off her buffalo wings was attacking my nose in the worst way.

I make it home and grab all my stuff to come inside, eyeballing the small parking lot to make sure I see Autumn's car there. I do.

I take a page right out of the Autumn handbook of how to address your bestie and try my hardest to play a tone of 'all is good and we are not fighting and this is a truce so please love me again okay thanks', including the usage of her favorite nickname.