Daydream Dating

Chapter 17 - Phone Calls

Song of the chapter - Just Hold On by Louis Tomlinson and Steve Aoki

A week of having lunch in the shelter had taken its toll on me. It felt like a job, having to be "on" the entire time. I listened to soccer banter, fake laughed at cheer jokes, and turned down Mitch's offer of tootsie rolls, gummy bears and red ropes. That guy had some kind of sweet tooth! Either that or he really was the life of the party, and needed to make everyday like lunch at Chuck E. Cheese.

TJ was always the perfect boyfriend. He made sure I had a seat next to him, and helped me clean the table afterward. By the time the dreaded Friday finally made an appearance, I had eased into the lunch shelter routine. I just hoped that Mitch had some chocolate this time. At least then my Friday wouldn't suck as hard.

After my Spanish class, with still no sign of Gina, I eagerly made my way to English for my daily classroom dose of TJ. He was waiting by the class for me, as usual, but I immediately noticed something was off. He had his head down, looking at his phone, with a distressed expression on his face. The look he held was one that made little butterflies in my stomach, but not the good kind. Suddenly, I was worried. What could be so bad that he made that face?

As I approached, TJ's head snapped up and the look was gone, replaced by a smile and a wink. Something felt wrong still, because that smile wasn't the one I had gotten used to. It looked more like the one I had been using at the shelter - fake.

"Hey," he said and grabbed my hand, although not quite as tight as I had felt just the day before. He walked us to class and opened the door, as he had every day since starting this school and finding out we had a class together. We sat next to each other and took out our notebooks, but said nothing. Usually at this point, TJ made some silly joke, or said something really sweet. But that day he just smiled and turned his attention to the book we were currently reading in class.

"What's up?" Luke said as he took his seat on my other side. We made quite the strange sandwich, the three of us. Suddenly, however, it seemed like the sandwich was flipped. TJ was the quiet brooding one, and Luke was all smiles and joy. "It's Friday!"

"Yeah," I said with a grumble. The way TJ was acting just made Friday feel more real. Of course, it was Friday! That must be the explanation for his mood. I hadn't been his girlfriend on a Friday yet, so I decided that must be the reason. Friday struck again.

I said that way too often.

"You should be smiling, Mal. Friday's are awesome!" Luke added. I didn't answer. I just gave him an audible moan, or groan, or some kind of grumble. It's really hard to describe unintelligible sounds.

I heard TJ make a similar sound. See, even he agreed with me. Friday's sucked.

"Anyway, I've got a chill weekend planned. How about you?" Luke directed his inquiry to me. Sadly I did not have an interesting answer for him.

I shrugged, "Not sure yet." And that's about as Friday as it could get.

Class continued with the same vibe. Luke was too happy for my taste. TJ was ominously quiet. And I was stuck in the middle. Both literally and figuratively. When the bell finally rang, the butterflies returned, with friends. Too many for my taste. Those bugs beat the heck out of my stomach wondering what was going on with TJ. I should have just asked, but maybe it had something to do with his mom. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. So I decided to suck up my worries and try to cheer him up, just in case he had gotten some bad news.