"Hey stranger." I said with an eyeroll and placed my hand on my hip. Over the past couple of months, Anthony and I had gotten pretty close. We'd discuss things like what we planned to do with our students once the school year started or he'd just come over to chill and talk which I appreciated because it kept my mind off of a lot of things.
Although I was staying in Ava's house temporarily, she and I had fallen off a bit. She would purposely ignore my calls, texts and any other form of communication until it was convenient. I wasn't sure why, but I was never one to kiss ass for friendships. It did hurt my feelings a bit though, I couldn't lie. But with our fallout, I wasn't trying to stay at her place any longer than I really needed to.
"Don't start. You know I've been working a lot lately. I'm lucky to even have time for this. But guess what." He said a little too excited.
"What?" I genuinely wondered stopping both him and I and sitting on the padded bench in front of the large mirror.
He looked at me and poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue before scrunching his eyebrows as if he were in deep thought.
"Damn, are you about to tell me you won the lottery?" I joked.
"Nah." He laughed and hopped up on the pull up bar, breathing in and out while he lifted his body up. "I'm moving."
"Really?" I cooed. "Congratulations! To where? From where since you never let me come over?" I joked but he only continued to pull his weight up and down as if he didn't just drop what I assumed to be great news on me.
"Anthony." I called, but he ignored me.
Standing, I grabbed onto the waistband of the front of his black gym shorts catching him off guard. He hopped down and wiped excess sweat from his face with the t-shirt that hung freely around his neck.
"What's going on?" I asked him. "you moving out of the state or something?" I asked not even realizing how low my face dropped at the though.
"No." He chuckled. "But it's cute to see you care." He said, pinching my cheek and earning a playful punch to the side.
Anthony.
I had worked extremely hard the past few months. With all the hours I had put in, working double sometimes triple shifts, I was able to get a two bedroom apartment that didn't look like a piece of shit.
It wasn't much, but it was something to be excited about when you've been living out of your car for what seemed like forever. I was so excited, I hadn't even realized I was preparing myself to tell Xora just for the sake of telling someone until the words passed my lips.
I wasn't prepared to tell her my situation. I never planned on it and I expected for her to never know, but here I was in the awkward position where I had to say something. I could tell by the look on her face.
"I've just been in a bit of a bad place lately, but I'm good now. I was just a little excited but it's really not a big deal." I laughed. "You want to help decorate?" I asked changing the subject.
"What aren't you telling me? You live with your mom or something?"
"No man." I laughed. "I told you my mom doesn't even live here."
"I know. I just wanted you to fix your face." She giggled a bit. "But what's going on? You want you to go get lunch so we can talk?"
"Xo." I said, stale facing her. "You want to leave the gym to go eat?"
A roar of laughter erupted from the pit of her stomach as she grabbed my hand. "I'm just here for support and to look cute."
e l e v e n
Start from the beginning
