Since Her

Twelve

I had been staring at my phone all day long.

I didn't understand. Was it something I did? Was that why she hadn't texted, or called? Or was it all just a mess in my head, a mess that didn't let me figure out that I was the one who needed to take the first steps. But she had kissed me, the other night, so technically...

No.

I was overthinking this. I had been staring at this phone for two hours straight, maybe even more, and I knew that the machine in my head, called brain, was about fifty seconds away from exploding. Maybe I should just go out and do something, I thought.

Just as I was about to put on my jacket and a scarf, as it was cold outside, a beep alerted me that there was a new message. Holding my breath, I almost crept towards my phone on the desk, afraid to look. 

Sighing in disappointment, I noticed it was just a text reminding me of my dentist appointment tomorrow morning. Jeez, I really have no friends, I thought sarcastically. 

Since I was about to take a walk anyway, I figured I should just do it and stop sulking. Maybe she was just busy. Maybe Riley Davis was an undercover superhero, actually, a blue-haired, wall-crawling superhero. What did I know about it?

Shaking my head at my ridiculousness, I made my way down the stairs. I could hear my parents in the kitchen, chatting about the upcoming dinner party at the Smiths'. I groaned internally. They would force me to come, as they always did with their stupid dinnerparties. 

I slipped my feet into my Converse, feeling like a hipster for even buying them. A hipster guy with a hipster name, not even as cool as a reversed Spiderman should be. 

The doorknob was surprisingly cold as I opened the door and stepped outside into the snowy weather. Christmas was coming up, which meant even more stupid dinnerparties. It was not as if I could just excuse myself, seeing as I lived in the dreadful town of Beaufort, where dinnerparties were the most important thing about Christmas.

Feeling my mood turning dreadful, I was about to throw a snowball at my own house, when I was hit by one myself. "Seriously?" I said, groaning as I righted myself. I was about to scold the little kid that was ruining my day even more, when I noticed a pair of twinkling blue eyes instead. 

"Riley," I said, breathlessly. "What are you doing here?"

"Challenging you into a snowball fight, of course."

And we had just carried on with our snowball fight, as if nothing ever happened. But all I could wonder was, why had she been ignoring me for two days?