Cross My Heart [2]

2.) Graduation

Ten Months Later

Ring! Ring! Ring!

I was woken up by the shrill ring of my phone on my nightstand. With a loud groan, I picked up my phone and put it to my ear.

“Hello?” I grumbled.

“Hey, Miss. Valedictorian.” A familiar voice came through the other end. Like I just said, it was familiar, but I couldn’t really place it exactly.

“Who is this?” I asked as politely as I could, being half a sleep and very confused.

“You don’t know who I am? Wow, heartbreaker.” He said, trying to sound offended.

My eyes widened and I was now fully awake. “Ryder!” I cheered into the phone.

“How’d you guess?” He chuckled. For the first few months after the magazine came out, I refused to talk to anybody within the California boarder, due to my sulking and pity parties. And once I got over that, I’d only speak to Jackson for a while, after he convinced me that he didn’t hate either me or Ryder. I guess that’s the long version of saying I never really spoke to anybody except for Jackson after the magazine incident. And Jackson couldn’t really fill me in on anything since for most of the time, he’d been filming in Japan for this new movie.

“Why’re you calling now? I still had two hours of sleep, stupid.” I mumbled, seeing that it was only six and my alarm was set for eight.

“Oops, must be the time difference.” He laughed.

I rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn’t see me, but grinned. I didn’t realize how much I missed him until I heard his voice. “How have you been?”

“Good.” He told me. “I’ve been good, what about you?”

I let out a dramatic sigh. “I’ve been, uh… yeah, good. I’ve been good.” I said.

“Really? You don’t sound too sure of that.”

“It’s been hard.” I admitted. “But under the circumstances, I’ve been good.”

“Well that’s… good?”

I chuckled and my heart ached. I really missed Ryder and his humor. “I guess. So what’s up?”

“Right. Well, you know that your brother’s premier is coming up this week, right?”

“Of course, it’s all everyone’s talking about, which is indescribably annoying, by the way. What about it?”

“You’re going to be there.” He chirped. “Don’t tell him, though. It’s a surprise. Plane tickets are already bought and Andy talked to your friend, Libby, who talked to your dad who says it’s okay.”

“So basically, you figured everything out so I couldn’t say no.” I declared. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

He laughed. “Exactly, you still know me so well. And Libby’s coming with you.”

“But I’m not ready.” I admitted quietly. “I-I’m just not ready to come back.”

“Don’t do it for me or Ka-“

“No.” I interrupted what I knew his next word was going to be. “I-I mean, yes. I’ll come, just…” I let out another heavy sigh. “Never, like, ever say his name.”

“Well, you could have at least let me finish my big emotional speech that I planned out.”

I chuckled. “I’m sure it was great.”

There was a short silence before he answered. “So you’ll come?”

“Yeah.” Like I had a choice. I thought to myself. If Andy West was in on this plan, I wouldn’t doubt her flying over here just to drag me to that premier by my hair.