Chance Encounters

five

Dedicated to _antisocialbookworm_ because she's literally everywhere. Thanks for checking out all my works babe ilysm 

Chapter 5

At first I thought I could handle the car ride if I just stayed silent, trying to forget the fact that Austin was sitting right next to me, with nothing but the console between us to separate our seats.

I thought that if I busied myself with other things, like poring over the car's interior—noting the slightly greasy dashboard, the crumbs caught on the frizzy floor mats, the fact that the speedometer didn't seem to be working—I could distract myself enough to forget his presence.

It was, however, a lot more difficult than I expected.

It wasn't just because I didn't have my phone with me. If I did, I could have plugged my earphones on and read a book to keep myself busy. It was also because Austin was singing along to the Paramore album we chose earlier—and his singing was horrid.

Five minutes in and it was already driving me crazy. "Dick, please stop singing."

He sent me a sideways glance before grinning a manic grin and belting out the lyrics of For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic even louder than before.

I never thought I could feel so much hatred for one person at that moment. I glared at him, wondering if my ears would bleed to death just by hearing his tone-deaf screeching. And even if they didn't, I wouldn't be surprised if my auditory sense had been permanently impaired.

When it became clear that there was no way I could force him to stop singing as long I showed the slightest bit of annoyance, I pursed my lips together and looked out the window instead.

There was also something that's been nagging me at the back of my head, but I refused to acknowledge it completely. I could feel it, though, as the events of the night played back in my head. It was like he and I had a lot of things in common—our short tempers and mutual hatred for each other. I could see why we would clash like two cars colliding with each other, casualties be damned.

But if I was even just the slightest bit similar to him, did that mean I was just as insufferable?

Well, at least I wasn't a terrible singer. "Turn left here." My voice had lost the fight in it. Ignoring his singing (if one could even call it that) was sucking all the energy out of me.

Tori owed me big-time.

Something also seemed off here. Tori wouldn't have ditched me as easily as that, would she? (Now that I think about it, the answer was yes.) She seemed smitten with Lewis, enough for her to possibly run off with him. She also knew I (supposedly) had her phone, so maybe she'd left me a message there to meet up somewhere else, but we couldn't get back to Tyler's house with the cops lurking around the area.

If we couldn't manage to find her and Lewis immediately, maybe we could go back to Tyler's to look for the phone in an hour or so.

Just the thought of having to stay with Austin for one more hour made me want to moan pitifully to myself. It was hard enough to try fighting the terrible hallucinations brought about by his singing, which I was sure would haunt me long after we've parted ways.

"Dick, please stop singing," I finally snapped when he sang a particularly high note that no one could ever sing more horribly than he just did.

He looked at me with a sneer, but he did stop singing. (The annoyance, however, didn't exactly lessen with the look on his face.) "I've heard most girls love it when guys serenade them."