Chance Encounters

thirty-two

[a/n: so, this is it. the last chapter of this story. it only seems fitting for this to end just as 2016 is beginning.

this is really, really short, as it merely functions as an epilogue of some sort. after all, this story could have easily ended in the previous chapter, but this one gives you a general direction of what happens to reed and austin. so, i really, really hope you enjoy it still. :)]

Chapter 32

"Sure you got everything?" Mom asked me, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest, the car keys dangling from her right hand.

"Yeah," I said, taking one last look around my room.

"Then let's go."

I was only really bringing a handful of my stuff, but all of the things I packed up were the ones that actually mattered. Pictures of me and Tori, a couple of my favorite books, the bookstand my mother gave me on my birthday last year and the small lampshade Tori and I bought together a few years back. She bought the same one, which she'd also brought with her when she left for Japan a week ago.

Austin, who was also leaving in two days, had come over last night to help me pack up even though I was mostly done anyway. He also joined us for dinner at Aunt Rosie and Uncle Silas's, who insisted to prepare a little going-away dinner for the two of us.

Aunt Rosie, of course, was delighted to see him, and though Uncle Silas wouldn't admit it, I knew he was warming up to him, too. Austin and I had run a couple of errands for them over the summer when Aunt Rosie's bad hip suddenly worsened.

Mom seemed to like him, too, though she still insisted on making us leave my bedroom door open while we packed away the last of my things after dinner last night.

Not like she had anything to worry about.

Even when Austin and I started going out, neither of us could seem to stop arguing with each other. We acted mostly like the way we did the first night we'd spent together, though Tori insisted on saying there was something affectionate about the way we wouldn't stop teasing each other.

"It's cute," Tori had told me.

"What part of him putting a fucking beetle in my bag is cute, exactly?" I'd asked her. Lewis, Tori, Austin and I were having dinner at this slightly fancy diner that opened a few towns over. Austin had somehow managed to sneak a large beetle in my purse, and when I opened it, I'd jumped up screaming, tossing my purse and accidentally hitting an old lady seated on the table next to ours.

It was mortifying, to say the least, and the dickhead was obviously so proud of himself for his little prank.

"You asked for it," he'd told me, not the least bit concerned of hiding his laughter. "That was just payback for what you did."

"Oh, grow up." I rolled my eyes at him, but I still couldn't help feeling a note of pride from the prank I'd just pulled off a couple days ago. I'd convinced Lewis to plant a disturbingly realistic rubber snake in their shower right before Austin used it. His reaction was priceless and I was glad his surprisingly high-pitched scream had been caught on video.

Still, it wasn't fair for him to humiliate me in public, and though I'd told him to grow up, I was already done planning my revenge by the time we paid the bill

I couldn't say what exactly we were, to be honest. We disagree most of the time and from the way we usually talked to each other, it was like we'd had an agreement to never stop throwing petty insults at each other.

We didn't morph into one of those couples who couldn't get their hands off of each other, but we did share rare moments of intimacy that seem out of place either.