Gonna Get 'Cha!

Chapter Eighteen: "The Night That Felt Like A Dream"

The house had never felt more quiet, even the fish seemingly gone or hidden away over the big tank across the room, as the downpour rattled against the roof faintly in the background—accompanied by the fish tank. I marched over across the room and sat down on the couch that was hardly ever occupied unless my father invited guests from the office for dinner—a few chardonnays later, they were in on some serious business talk.

With my legs stretched out on the couch, I kept staring at my phone, that was buzzing incessantly, though not from the one I was waiting for. Logan was still in the hospital, that night we were sat in the back of an ambulance, the doctor finally concluded that someone with that much to drink, had to be monitored for at least a few days. Hence the group had been quiet ever since. I'd talk Faye up, or the others, but they had been busy ever since Exam Week, the last time we ever really hung out was at that place where I ended up sneaking away to the speakeasy—Faye said something about visiting her long-distance boyfriend, whom I assured wasn't going to make it, but there they were. Aside from that, Lily was cooped with her family business—her family forcing her to work over hours—then there was Seth, last thing we needed was a body being buried over how much we didn't get along when it was just the two of us.

"Can't go, sorry, but don't let me stop you." That was the last of Celia's message, followed by a bunch of no answer video call in tow—the three daunting boxes I wish I could delete. I let my phone slipping out of my grasp, onto the couch, while I leaned my head back on the arm chair and closed my eyes shut, sighing out of boredom and the hungover I still could feel from stealing my parents' supply.

After dozing off for about five minutes it seemed, I felt my phone buzzing, but then when I saw it was actually for an hour, noticing Nellie's name pop up on the notification box saying that she'd already arrived in front of my house, with Brook in tow. We'd made plans before, but it wasn't settled over whose house we were going to raid next, the last of the messages in the group chat was the two of them debating over movies and very few about the house choice.

Brook allowed herself in as I lazily opened the door for the two of them, looking around the room in awe, her cheeks beamed. "Your house is... huge." She contemplated, standing over the big fish tank.

"And it's just the living room alone." I shrugged off, walking lazily towards the couch and lying on my stomach with my phone in front of my face, scrolling past my feed. "It gets lonely sometimes, though."

"I can tell." Nellie clicked her tongue, nodding along. "Hence the fish tank, right? Seriously, who owned this big of a fish tank? Your parents a big fan or what?" She interrogated me with questions as if she was on an episode of Criminal Minds. A show I'd only watched now and then; but got even more heated up knowing that Nellie was obsessed with it as well and couldn't stop pestering me about the one hot guy from the show.

The podcast about diving deep into the twist and turns of pop culture then, was numbed down by the sound of the rain rattling against the roof. Stirring around my cup of ice cream with a teensy bit of wine in it, I messed them up boringly while trying to listen to the podcast even though the task seemed to be impossible by this point. Nellie had decided to sit on the other side of the couch, right next to me, arching her brows at me.

"We didn't just come here to fantasize about the fish tank over there. Well, Brook seems to." Nellie started, the corner of her eyes caught glancing over me while still intent on typing away over her phone.

Taking a spoonful bite of ice cream, I countered. "What are you here for, then?" The glass felt cold against my skin, numbing every ounce of feelings I had left, if I had any as Celia pointed out the other day what a cold-hearted I was for leaving her to go away to the next town that night.