Moving Forward

Chapter Twenty Six

Why are novels so cheesy? First the girl doesn't like the dude, plays hard to get and then likes him. I mean it is exciting to find out what happened in the end but... Why? I licked my finger and gently flipped the page to chapter thirty eight.

"Mals!" Anya pulled a chair and sat next to me.

My head was buried deep into my book. She was disturbing my last few minutes of work before I could go home. I didn't look up, nor did I acknowledge her.

"Mals! Why are you ignoring me? It's been two weeks since we last spoke and since then you've been giving me the cold shoulder."

I unintentionally flipped the page. I was yet to read the third line of the chapter, but it seemed easier to ignore her by pretending that I was deep reading.

"Maliah!" Anya slapped my arm.

"Ow!" I shrieked. "What do you want!?"

She shook her head. "I cannot believe you. What did I do to get this treatment?"

Aside from the fact that she told me to speak to Rion and give him another chance, nothing... She did nothing wrong. But I didn't want her to cloud my judgment. My mind was already made up.

"Nothing!" I snapped the book close. I glanced at my watch, I had ten minutes left before I could safely leave.

"Are you still angry from last time? I told you it was my opinion. You don't need to stop talking to me for that."

I stared at her and listened carefully to what she had to say. She spoke for the entire ten minutes trying to explain why she said what she said and why Rion did what he did. I was tired of hearing it.

I had been to the beach six times since Anya visited me, and saw Rion every single time I was there. He made no contact with me and didn't even glance my way when he passed by. I guess he got the memo to leave me the hell alone. The way he did it made me question whether he really wanted to help or not.

If he passed by to check Ms Flint and I was outside, he looked straight towards the direction he was heading. It angered me a bit that he had no manners to say morning.

"I... I need to go." I said placing my bag over my shoulder.

"Do you want a ride home?"

"No thanks. I'm fine."

"Maliah!"

I left without responding to her.  I caught a taxi five minutes later and headed straight to the beach. As usual, I changed into my bikini and a sun dress in the changing room then strutted down to the sand. The beach was empty yet again with one to two sand bathers. Ispread my blanket across the sand and lapped my feet.

"Where's my lip balm?" I said to myself as I dug deep into my handbag.

It felt like an endless pit. I needed to reorganize the bag as soon as possible; it was getting out of hand. I managed to get a hold of it, but while my hands were on its way out, the grocery list I written earlier today slipped out and blew onto the sand. Noo... Ugh!

I shot up to my feet quickly and attempted to grab the piece of paper, but it kept blowing further away. "No you little piece of..." My body stiffened as I met my threshold. My feet were approximately six feet away from the shoreline.

The paper was a mere two feet in front of me, but my body didn't move. "Come on Mals just a little bit more." I coached myself.

It wasn't working. Whatever. It's damp anyways. I made an about turn and strutted back to my blanket. I could always write another one.