Confessions of a Teenage Caffeine Addict

29 // Lost

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Shoutout to Canzies for making me this amazing cover!! Also, I hope you guys enjoy this insanely long chapter (:

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They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

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KATIE

JULY // 7 MONTHS EARLIER

I turned the page of my summer reading book while simultaneously attempting to stifle a yawn. This book was going to be the death of me. I'd rather read Julius Caesar instead of this cinder block in front of me. And I couldn't believe I had to write two five-page papers on this thing—one paper was making an argument for the main character running away and the other paper was making an argument against the main character's decision. I slammed my head down on the book.

"Having fun?" Ava asked me as she walked out onto the porch with a stack of books in her arms, her laptop among them.

"Who let me take 3 AP classes?" I muttered into the pages of my book.

"Uhh, the Dean of Students," she answered before sliding into the seat across from me just as a warm breeze ruffled the pages of one of my notebooks. My hair tickled the backs of my shoulders and I visibly shivered. It was kind of cold for July.

"Oh... right." I scrunched up my face in content. "Well he shouldn't have done that." I said turning the page. "Chapter 4. Shoot me." Three seconds later I felt something semi-hard hit the back of my head and put my hand to my 'battle wound.' "Ow," I said even though it didn't actually hurt. I turned around to see Finn holding a nerf gun, trying very hard to hold in his laughter. "Finnegan Michael Hawthorne, was that you?" I asked, feigning anger.

"Gotcha!" He burst out laughing before shooting another dart at me. Then he disappeared into the safety of our air conditioned house.

"Dork!" I shouted, hearing his footsteps fade away, leaving nothing but remnants of smiles and echoes of laughter. "What are you working on?" I asked Ava as I turned back to the table.

"AP Stats." She rolled her eyes. "My teacher is making everyone do the first six chapters before school starts, and then we have a test during the first week of school," Ava said while highlighting some stuff with a blue highlighter. "This weekend needs to hurry up and get here faster."

"I think it's stuck in 4th of July traffic," I said as I wrote down a few notes on page 72."

"Oh my God, I know! Tell me about it... I went to get a coffee this morning and I stood in line for literally thirty-five minutes." Ava shook her head.

"I went for a run this morning," I began.

"With the hottie?" Ava wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I laughed. "Yeah, with Derek. And hey, you're dating the other Class-A hottie."

"Doesn't mean Derek is less hot," Ava said.

"Ok, ok, write that down. Document it. But back to me and Derek running... Do you know how many times we almost got hit by a car?" I turned the page so hard, I ripped the corner off.

"Two?"

"I lost count after four." I shook my head.

"People really need to learn how to drive!" Ava looked up at me.