FATE

100. What Fate Is

BROOKE

The only thing louder than the crunchy sound of cereal in my mouth is Blake's voice. He's trying to sound as low as he can but yesterday, he had the bright idea of clearing out some stuff in the apartment and changing the furniture. The space can accommodate more sounds now.

I place the steel spoon in the bowl and listen. He's talking to our dad- or at least, his dad. I haven't tried to talk to him since the last time in Seattle, but I'm sure he already knows that I know the truth so now, things don't have to be weird between us since I'm going to stop trying.

Next to me on the kitchen counter, my phone lights up. It's a text from Hailee.

"Yo, I'm sending someone over to pick you up", the text reads.

"Someone???"

It takes a while before the three little dots on her side of the screen turn into words, "Yes, I'll see you there"

"Who's this someone?"

She reads it almost immediately but doesn't reply and I sigh as I continue to eat, because I know it's him. I hear Blake's door open and shut right after. When he enters the kitchen, he smiles.

I look away, "how is he?"

"He's okay", he replies as he walks towards the counter, "what are you doing today?"

"Going to the bonfire", I glance at him as he takes a seat across the counter from me, "I told you this yesterday"

He furrows his eyebrows, "oh yeah right"

"What are you doing today?"

"Oh not much", he mutters dryly, staring at the counter as he taps his finger on it.

He's lying. He can never maintain eye contact for too long when he's lying- the bigger the lie, the shorter the eye contact.

"Are you going out with anyone?", I push further.

"I'm going to pick someone up from the airport, besides that- nothing", he's looking straight at me now so he's not lying.

"Who?"

His gaze drops back to the counter, "no one important"

I roll my eyes and push the plate away from me. I'm not exactly hungry anymore. Jonah is coming here, which has started to make me nervous. We haven't really spoken since the event and we don't text or call each other either. I guess I can understand why.

"I'm leaving soon", Blake says, "we'll be going around the city for a while before we come home so I don't think I'll see you till tomorrow, right?"

"Yup", I beam, "I'm spending the night at Hailee's"

He stands to move around the counter and kisses me on my cheek, "have fun kiddo", he glances at the bowl in front of us, "and wash that before you leave"

"Will do"

Blake leaves while I'm washing the bowl which takes quite a lot of time for some reason. I'm trying to pass away time until Jonah gets here but I also don't want to spend so much time alone with him in the apartment so when I'm done washing the bowl, I go to the bathroom for another quick shower.

School is starting in only a matter of days and everything is going to go back to its normal routine except a whole lot of things changed over the summer so not everything will be the same.

Carmen and Hailee will be together- as an actual couple now. Last night, Carmen spoke on and on for an hour about how Hailee asked her to be her girlfriend and I could see how happy it made her.