The Thief is Not Okay

Chapter 5: Didn't I tell you to get lost?

When I tell you Nate was furious, I mean volcanic eruption, leasers coming out of his eyes furious. I called him before going to bed last night, he was making pasta. We both love cooking. He's the one who taught me how to make a risotto. It was so good.

He said Caleb's an sick imbecile anyways and I shouldn't let it bother me. He has been in the bad end of the media once, his family actually, so he knows a little about public humiliation. He knows what is like to have his name slandered and have people spread misinformation. Lies. After his father's sister was found with a dead body in her apartment, it's head detached from it's body. People are very creative with their words, a head line read:

Carnivorous woman missed her flight to the Amazon.

And they went on to ask her to place take her family with her.

Mine is nothing compared to his but he lets me have my moment. He doesn't say I'm complaining, or talk down on me like Caleb often did. When I told Caleb I cut myself once cooking by accident, he said I was a baby and should stop complaining, I'm not the first person to cut themselves.

Pig.

Nate says I shouldn't worry too much, that this will blow over and they will have something else to talk about. He suggests I tell my parents, after all, my dad's a big time lawyer. He'll know what to do.

But I can't do that, imagine talking to my dad and watching the look on their faces when he finds out what I've done? No.

Nate stretches out his tattooed arm to grab something. He and Kelly met online, while she was still at Mayfair. We didn't understand why he was interested in talking to someone he'd never met before but I asked her to give him a chance. He's handsome, I can't be blamed for falling pry to those brown eyes. Anyways, my sister got accepted to Harvard and now they've met. Not now but her biggest concern was that they may never meet but he flew all the way from LA to see her. He does that sometimes and when he can't make it to her, he pays for her plane ticket to come see him. It's incredibly romantic; I don't know I settled for less but no more. Nate works for a tech company and owns a house.

In California.

How crazy is that?

And he's only twenty-four.

I like his hair, it's so black and curly. His parents moved to Los Angeles from Mexico before he was born. He doesn't talk about his family very much, or maybe I don't ask. Nate doesn't tell you things unless you ask him and I'm not go at asking questions, personal ones. I shouldn't think that way cause he tells me every time to be free with him and that I shouldn't be afraid to talk to him but I don't know why I find it difficult to ask questions.

Ask him questions.

It's like I'm scared I might found out something about him that I don't like and start seeing him differently.

I don't want to see Nate differently.

He's Nate.

He has a friend named Ethan who's getting married to his high school sweetheart next month.

Good for Ethan.

Nate's right about one thing. It will be old news soon, but until then I just need to keep my head down and focus on making it to top three in my class. That's another pain on its own. I should start being more realistic with my ambitions. Seriously.

There's Bola, who takes turns with Jerome for second and third place in the class. Chima's always first.

Always.

I'm either tenth, or seventh. Mid belt. We're twenty seven. And it's not like my grades are bad, it's simply that everyone else want to stay relevant just as bad as I do. Can they please calm down? If I want to change the narrative, I have to give the people something else to talk about. I don't know if making top three is juicy enough but that's all I can come up with right now.