Write In My Heart

Chapter 9: Weird

"It's nice to see that you and Jonathan are hanging out again," my mother said at the breakfast table as my spoon scraped the bottom of my cereal bowl. My family and I were eating breakfast together–– an extremely rare occurrence–– before we all went our own separate ways to have our own separate days. Lucy was lazily lying under the table, ready to seize the opportunity to gobble up any fallen food.

"Yeah," was all I could say before I stuffed my mouth with food, hoping to deter her from asking me any follow-up questions. Johnathan had insisted on picking me up this morning to take me to school, and he refused to take no for an answer. On one hand it was cute, but on the other hand, it was kind of stressful. Mainly because my mom had the eyes of a hawk and was accurately aware of how close we'd been getting in such a short amount of time. I just crossed my fingers that she wouldn't connect this sudden uptick in our time together to my lack of sadness and moping since our conversation that night.

Luckily my tactic seemed to work, and she didn't ask me anything else as I slowly chewed.

Alice, on the other hand, was unfortunately too young to understand social cues.

"Ooh, does that mean I can play with his kitty since you guys are best friends?" There was an excitement in her voice that would make you think it was Christmas. She adorably had syrup from her waffles all around her mouth, and even some in her hair which was pulled up in a messy lopsided ponytail.

I let out a muffled awkward chuckle before I forced myself to swallow a huge bite, and my throat momentarily hurt as the food was forced down. "Yeah, I don't know about that one, Rabbit. Usually, when I go over there, I'm there to study."

She pouted. "Ugh, no fair!"

"So how's he and that gal he's been with? What's her name? Ryan?"

"Rachel," I said, though the syllables tasted like acid across my tone."They're not together anymore."

My father hummed. "That's a shame. They seemed to be a nice couple, at least from what Jim told me."

I remained silent as I sipped from my glass of water. It wasn't easy talking about your pseudo-boyfriend as if he was with someone else. But regardless, I swallowed down the jealousy as I took another bite of my food.

Talks of Johnathan's potential love life thankfully ceased and turned to my other least favorite topic, college. Luckily, before we got too deep into the finances and responsibilities I'd have while studying, there was a ring at the doorbell.

I practically jumped out of my chair before I basically threw my dishes in the dishwasher, popped a mint in my mouth, grabbed my backpack, and said my goodbyes. I couldn't help the giant smile that painted my face as I opened the door to the same grey eyes I'd been itching to see since yesterday. "Hey, Johnathan."

"Hey, Asa." The way he said my name instantly caused alarm bells to instantly go off in my head. Despite his usual lopsided smile and warm gaze, there was something off about his tone. He didn't say my name like he usually did.

Before I could ask him what was wrong, a small figure practically pushed past me and threw herself into his arms. "Johnny!" Alice squealed as she buried her face in his stomach. He momentarily tensed at the sudden action as my parents joined me in the doorway, both with warm smiles on their faces.

"Hello, Johnathan."

"Hey, sweetie."

My parents simultaneously greeted me.

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Hill," he said as some of the tension left his body. "Hi, Alice," he said in a sing-song voice as he finally wrapped his arms around her.