Just Wait » Boyf Riends

The World Is Stupid And So Am I

I was in the middle of talking to Jake and Jenna, when suddenly, a random Whitney Houston song filled the café. It was mostly drowned out due to the people chattering about. I looked up and looked at Jake, who was still waiting for me to continue my overenthusiastic story about jellyfish, so that I could compliment whoever it was on their excellent music taste, until I realized that it was, indeed, coming from my own ringing phone.

I quickly take it out and silence it "Sorry, sorry—"

It starts ringing again. I look up at Jenna, her eyes not even diverting from her phone. She was in a very heated Twitter battle with Madeline and the last thing you should do during times like these is interrupt her, luckily I still had Jake to keep me company, however, she spoke up anyway: "Sounds important, dude. Go ahead."

I look at Jake and he nods.

  I shoot them both an apologetic smile and go outsode so that I could talk in silence. I look down at the caller ID.

  Chloe.

  Oh shit.

  Jeremy probably told her I went to visit him.

  When she explicitly told me not to.

  Oh fuck.

  I suck the air through my teeth and pick up the call. The other end is eerily quiet, which I could only take as a hint that I needed to talk first: "Uh, hey Chlo—"

  "What the fuck?"

  "Okay, listen, I felt bad, okay? I recognized that I acted like a dick, completely by accident mind you, and I went to fix it, okay? That was it! Jeremy forgave me and we're okay-ish friends now," I pinched the bridge of my nose. If the next thing that comes out Chloe's mouth is anything remotely close to 'you're a dickbag' then I'm hanging up.

I hear an exhale from the other side of the call. A beat.

"You made Jeremy happy, okay?" I can actually hear her physically hurt over saying that, "He was really giggly the entire day at school, and when I asked him why, he told me."

I grit my teeth. I was getting really mixed messages. It's like when you come down to the dinner table and your mom says: 'well, look who finally came to join us!' all sarcastically. Like, do you want me here or not?

"So... are you... mad?" I say unsurely.

Chloe sighs, her voice starting off high and dropping an entire octave, "No, you ignored what I said, so I'm kinda grumpy, but other than that, I'm glad you said sorry, okay? And uh... thanks for making Jeremy smile."

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

"Don't—"

"Did Chloe Valentine, just thank me, Michael Mell, born on 7th March 2001, at 2:30PM raised in Ecu—"

"Oh my god, yes, shut your mouth," I could hear her let out a stupid unattractive laugh straight afterwards. But not like unattractive like ugly or anything, it's like one of those real laughs that makes your insides go all smiley.

"So, you'd be like... okay? With me visiting him in the future? Is that what you're saying? Do I get full Chloe Valentine permission to visit Jeremy Heere today?"

  I can hear the smile in her voice, "As long as you don't do whatever the fuck you did the day before yesterday, then yes. You get full Chloe Valentine permission."

  "Fuck yeah."

  The day absolutely went uphill from there. Jenna offered to pay the bill that I was stressing about, the waitress gave me two cookies instead of one by accident and I clicked shuffle on my playlist and got nothing but my favourite songs.