Vanilla And Cocoa

Chapter 32 "Objective One"

"Here, eat this."

Justin blearily looked up at me from his place on the couch. He woke up covering his mouth and staring into space. After a few calming breaths, he slowly put down his hand and relaxed. When I asked him about it, he just said that he felt a little sick.

In short, I told him to take it easy and wrapped him up in a blanket burrito with Merissa.

He slowly reached for the pack of crackers and bottle of ginger ale in my left hand. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. Merissa, here, and scoot over, y'all." I handed her the plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on it and sat under the blanket with them.

"Thank you!" Merissa said enthusiastically.

"No problem." I planted a kiss on the side of her head and she hummed happily as she took a bite out of her sandwich.

I felt a hand on the small of my back and turned to look at Justin. He had a tired smile on his face but he looked better than he did when he woke up.

"You two make a nice picture." He mumbled softly.

"We should take one!" I said as I sat up hurriedly and Justin grumbled at being jostled around.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and pulled up the camera app. Merissa abandoned her PB&J on the coffee table and hopped up in glee. Justin tried to keep his face emotionless as Merissa and I made silly faces at the camera but he couldn't hide the quirk of his lips. I took sixteen photos in total. Merissa, Justin, and I took seven with all of us, Merissa and I took five silly photos and two regular ones, a candid one of Justin, and the last one was an accident.

I was trying to get Justin to look at the camera by leaning on him and shouting, "Smile!" But halfway through the word, Justin turned his head quickly in alarm causing us to bump noses. I closed my eyes on impact and then opened them again only to make eye contact with him. Both of us sat frozen as we stared at each other less than a breath apart. My thumb slipped and tapped the screen on accident. The feeling of my thumb hitting the screen brought me back to reality. I slowly leaned back and Justin blinked out of his trance.

The incident was barely five seconds long but Merissa took notice and grabbed my phone once I fully sat back.

"Hey!"

"Merissa-" Justin started and she gave him the meanest face she could muster making him shut up in the process.

I held back a bout of laughter at that and watched patiently as Merissa tapped around on my phone. I heard Justin let out a puff of air in frustration and then bite into a saltine.

"Just let her. She's fine." I whispered to him.

"Respecting people's privacy is a redeeming trait." He said pointedly at Merissa around another cracker.

Merissa rolled her eyes and turned away from him. And, at that, I snickered. Justin pushed me away playfully and I just pressed closer instead. "That's true but Merissa can see. I ain't got nothing to hide. It's probably boring, actually."

Merissa finally hopped up and handed my phone back with a smug smile. "Here you go."

I pulled Merissa down to sit with us and turned my screen on. I immediately noticed the lockscreen was different. It was one of the pictures we all took together. Merissa and I were grinning at the camera and Justin's lips were quirked up in a fond smile.

I gasped softly at the image and stared at it.

"It's just a picture." Justin huffed defensively.

I lightly hit his arm. "Ow."

"Open it." Merissa prompted and I obliged.

The second picture was the accidental one but it didn't look like an accident at all. It actually looked Instagram worthy. In it, Justin and I were locked in an intense stare that looked way too intimate. Justin's lips were parted and my head was tilted slightly. I felt my face warm and quickly turned it off. "That was really sweet of you."

"You're welcome." Merissa smiled brightly and Justin pinched her nose lightly, making her squeak.

He pulled her into his lap and sighed. We piled together again and ate in the quiet of my house but I could tell this was a quiet they were comfortable with.

"I want to sell the house."

I looked at him in genuine surprise but Merissa didn't even flinch, chewing her sandwich as she listened. "Really?"

He hummed. "I want to."

"Okay. Merissa, what do you think?"

She shrugged, now picking at the crust. "I like it here."

I nodded and turned back to Justin. "When do you want to do it?"

"I don't know. Soon. I want to get a lot of things done right now and it's so frustrating." He said, playing lazily in Merrisa's hair.

"I feel the same way," I blew some air from between my lips. "Speaking of, Merissa, I have something for you."

They both watched me as I got up and walked towards the stairs. "I'll be right back."

I jogged upstairs to my room and grabbed an empty notebook. I made it back downstairs and sat beside Merissa. "I wanted to give you something. I know sometimes you don't talk about how you feel about certain things so I wanted to give you something that you can express your feelings freely with,"

She eyed the notebook and then looked back at me with a question in her eyes. Justin watched silently. "This is a diary or a journal. Whatever you want to call it. It's your very own so you can write whatever you want in it. How you feel, describe your day, write down secrets. Anything. No one will read it but you can show it to us if you want to."

"This is mine?" She asked.

I nodded and handed it to her. She took it from my hands slowly and met my gaze. "I can go write in it right now?"

"Yep."

She dashed off to find a pencil and Justin chuckled. "Thank you for that. She needed that."

"No need to say thank you. Like you said, she needed it."

"Still."

"I know."

Objective 1: Completed.

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Y'all I'm so sorry. I lost my phone and had to get a substitute. A lot has been going on but I managed to pull through and push a chapter out.