How Could This Be Real?

2. Squiddy Tours

I got to the hotel a few minutes later and walked into our room. "There you are," my mom said. "We were starting to get worried."

"Sorry, I stopped and had lunch."

"We were going to have lunch together, remember?" my dad said.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that. I guess shopping just made me really hungry."

"You don't have any bags," my mom observed.

"Everything there was super expensive, I just liked looking around," I lied. "I'm kinda tired, can I go relax for a while?"

They looked at each other, "Sure, we can go out to dinner later if you want."

"Thanks," I said and went into my small walk-on room and shut the door. I laid on the bed and looked through the pictures I had taken. He looked like he was having fun, laughing and making silly faces, trying to get his phone in front of his face. I smiled, but turned my phone off and watched some TV, trying to get it out of my head.

A while later I grabbed my tablet and went to YouTube. I instinctively went to Squid's channel first, but stopped before I clicked on the new video. I know it's stupid, but I didn't want to see him for a while. I had to forget him, I was never going to see him again, at least outside of videos. So I went to Stampy's channel instead and watched his video. After I had checked all the other channels, I found myself back at Squid's. I was about to click on the video when there was a knock.

"Angel? Are you ready to go?"

I glanced at the screen again then said, "Yeah, one minute," and turned it off.

On our way back from dinner my mom asked me, "Angel, are you alright? You were pretty quiet at dinner."

"I'm always quiet."

"Yeah, but not like that. You looked, sad. Did something happen today?"

"No, it was pretty boring actually."

"Alright, but if you need to talk to me, I'm here."

"Mhmm," I murmured and looked out the window. Moms, always so nosy.

When we got back I went into "my room" again and got ready for bed. Right before I was about to turn off the light, my phone rang and Squid's stupid contact picture came up. I almost didn't answer it, I didn't want to embarrass myself more. I waited a minute to see if it would keep ringing and when it did, I picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hey, Angel, I was afraid you wouldn't pick up."

"There's this thing called sleeping you know," I said, trying to sound tired, which wasn't difficult since I was.

"Oh, sorry. I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I told you, I'm fine."

"Alright, alright, I believe you. Were your parents upset?"

"Nah, just worried."

"Sorry about keeping you so long, I didn't even think about it."

"It's fine, I didn't even know how late it had gotten."

"Yeah, me neither. Say, are you busy tomorrow? I have some time if you still wanted that tour."

"You still really want to do that? Even after I kinda rushed out on you?"

"It wasn't your fault, you had to go, I get it. I'm just afraid that it had something to do with me. Did I say something wrong? Oh, it was the necklace thing, wasn't it? Sorry about that, it was a bit out of line, huh?"