Looking Into the Past

Chapter 4: Back Home! Problems Arise!

Back Home! Problems Arise!

In which Neff returns home in a daze.

~x~

"This is... V3ll, right?" I asked, after a moment of silence

"It certainly is. I'd like to discuss that email you sent me," the doctor on the other end said.

"Go on..."

"Unfortunately, I cannot go all the way to Elmore. All of my equipment belongs to the hospital here. I can't haul it all to a different city to do such a long process. The curing of your condition takes around six months. And there's still the risk of death." Of course, it wasn't going to happen easily.

"That's one I'm willing to take. So... what can we do then?"

"I'd need your father's consent since you live with him, but according to your email, that's out of the question," V3ll said. I sighed.

"So what do we do?"

"I'll call you back within a few days, Neff."

And with that, he hung up.

Fuck! All I want is to stop living in fear of being hunted down, even if Elmore was a safe haven. I could fend for myself back home just fine if it meant being cured. Sunny would be there for me. Amaya would be too.

God, how I missed the both of them.

At school the next day, I sat next to Tobias in class. The end of the year was coming up, and Miss Simian stopped giving a fuck where we sat and what we did. At this point, he and I just talked a lot and shared memes with each other on iFunny. But seeing as how I was grounded and stuck with the flip phone, we just talked.

"So when are you getting your phone back?" he asked. "It's been weeks."

"Hell if I know. When does the year end?" I responded. I still felt guilty about basically using him to get me back home, which in the end, failed miserably. Note to self: never get drunk and high again. It's either one or the other.

"June 9th. I'm throwing another party for the end of the year if you wanted to come. Partying with you is lit as hell."

I smiled nervously. "I can see if I can go, but see, my dad has my ass on lockdown about that now. If anything, we'd have to do it with adults around."

He gave me a weird look. "What adults would want to party with us? You're too much of a goody, Neff."

"I am?" I asked, baffled.

"Duh. You always worry if adults approve of things."

I frowned. "This is one time. Sorry I don't want to make shit worse with my dad."

"Suit yourself. But if you change your mind, the invite is still there. June 9th. 5:00."

I don't think he realizes that once my dad has me on lockdown on something, I was ON LOCKDOWN. There was no way around it. Even when mom tried talking him out of things, his rule still stood.

I looked at the date on my phone. May 31st. That was 9 days from now. Would V3ll call within that time period? Or would I be waiting longer? And would my dad even let me go to the party? I wasn't going to lie; partying with Tobias was fun as hell. In fact, that was the most fun I'd had with anyone in forever. And it surely made all this stress of moving go down a lot.

Tobias was, at this point, my only friend. Yeah, Gumball and Darwin were the first ones I met, but I never really clicked with them like I did with Tobias. We had the same sense of humor, liked a lot of the same TV shows, and both listen to some pretty good music. The only difference was that he was athletic, and I wasn't. He was like a second Sunny, only a different species.