those years between us

[20] BEST FRIEND

  THE DAY AFTER that, Cami and I decided to head out for a nice shopping spree. We chose Mong Kok, with multiple malls within easy walking distance.

  My discussion with Orion hadn't ended with any clear conclusion. I think he'd been too shocked to really react, and I hadn't wanted to say much else either. We'd shared a few more words and then gone our separate ways—I wasn't sure where he went, because I went back upstairs immediately and he hadn't.

  I hadn't seen him since. He hadn't texted or attempted to contact me either.

  Not that I wanted to.

  Instead, I now stood outside T.O.P., one of the newer malls in Mong Kok that had opened in the recent years, built specifically and catered for younger people. It didn't sell expensive stuff, focusing on cheaper and smaller brands. Not my favourite place, but I liked checking what they had every once in a while. Sometimes they had something that surprised me.

  Cami was a bit late. Just a couple minutes, but it was enough to make my brows scrunch. If we wanted to have lunch, we might have to go pretty soon to avoid a massive queue. But Camille had also said she wanted to go shopping for a bit first before eating.

  I could probably change her mind, though.

  I hadn't talked to Camille much in the past few days either. Not after that night, that little midnight call. I wasn't quite sure what to say to her, scared that she'd ask if I reached out. Maybe she was worried about the same? About me asking what was going on with Dean if she contacted me too?

  "Salome!"

  A yell of my name snapped me out of my trance. My head snapped up and met Cami's wide grin as she stood opposite me. I scowled, glancing around at some of the bystanders regarding us with one raised brow. "You didn't need to yell."

  She shrugged, pushing me towards the direction of the doorway from the MTR station into the mall. "I wanted to, have a problem with that?"

  "People are staring at us now."

  "Oh, who cares?" She was still grinning. "My god, I am so glad to be out of the house. My parents are starting to get suffocating. Absolutely insufferable, I'm telling you."

  "Mines are better, but it is getting a bit boring," I admitted. That, and I needed to keep putting myself into things to keep my brain off things it shouldn't be thinking or worrying about at all.

  "Not long before we go back," she said with a hum. "How you feeling?"

  "Decent? I'm not that worried. It's not like Upper Fifth or Upper Sixth again with mocks right after Christmas or something."

  "Oh god, I was shitting myself this time last year."

  I snickered. "As you should be. Considering how little you'd properly studied."

  She wrinkled her nose. "Ah, well, I did my best. And I got into Redchester in the end anyways, didn't I?"

  "It's not Oxford or Cambridge."

  "As if any of us got in," she remarked shrewdly.

  "A couple of our old schoolmates did," I pointed out. "Even more among the natives."

  "Because it's easier for them," Cami said with a roll of her eyes. "And we've never been the academically top bunch anyways. Like, we're not bad and we're near the top, but we're not the top, you get what I mean?"

  "I know, I know."

  "Don't tell me it still bothers you."

  "It doesn't." Which was true. Except recently I'd started wondering if maybe I should have tried just a bit harder to get into Oxbridge so that I didn't have to go to Redchester, so this entire fiasco wouldn't have happened in the first place.