My Obsession with Chloe Claire: BOOK ONE

Chapter Seven

I noticed the bored look in Marshall's eyes and smirked. I might not have really liked her, but I didn't really want her bored while she was here. I took the remote off the tv stand and handed it to her. "Here, you can watch tv while you wait‒ that is, if you want to."

She gingerly took the remote from my hand. "Thanks," she said, her eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

"You're welcome," I smiled as warmly as possible, which was pretty hard to do. "I'll be in my room if you need something," I said and quickly went inside of my room. I threw down my things in the floor and flung myself on my bed, feeling myself relax for the first time today. I looked at the pictures of my family on the walls of my bedroom and smiled, especially the one of my gray tabby Miss Kitty who was in the middle of sneezing.

It made me sad that I was hours away from my adorable fat cat. I missed her warmth and squishiness on my lap, purring like the fat potato she was. I could have lied and told the campus that I had some sort of anxiety where I could keep Miss Kitty in my dorm with me, but I didn't because it wasn't the right thing to do.

My phone started vibrating and all of the peace and quiet I once had was taken away from me. I sat up groggily and picked up the phone to see a reminder set for me to skype my family.

I smiled and jumped off my bed, opened up my laptop on my small desk and sat down in the desk chair. It had been a while since I had spoken with my parents. The last time I remembered calling them was after band camp.

"Chloe!" my mom exclaimed as soon as the skype opened. "You look so pretty today," she squinted her eyes while adjusting her glasses.

I laughed. "Don't I usually look pretty, Mom?" I joked. Mom knew that it was out of my element to be dressing up. I liked dressing up as long as it was something pretty and comfortable‒ which was basically nothing I owned, so I never dressed up. But just because I liked wearing sweatshirts didn't mean I don't wear makeup along with my lazy clothing. I always made sure to wear makeup because to me, it somehow balanced the fact that I was wearing more casual clothing.

"Of course you do, but I typically see you wearing sweatshirts and t-shirts," she smiled.

"Where's Dad?" I asked, not seeing him on the screen with her. Usually at this point, Dad would have said something similar to Mom.

"He says he's very sorry he couldn't skype with me, but you know how his work goes," she shook her head. "That man works too much for his job."

"Don't even get me started on how many times I told him to quit," I sighed. My dad spent plenty of hours at the fire department to be making way more money than what he does, and he missed too many holidays to prove that. I loved my dad, but it was a shame that I didn't get to see him as often as I wanted.

"Chloe, you know he can't just quit. He loves his work," Mom tried to say with an understanding voice. I knew there was some part of her that wanted him to quit his job, but she would never admit it. "Enough about that, how is school so far?" she smiled, wrinkles forming at the corners of her eyes.

"You mean the only day I've gone?" I grinned. "School is well... school. I don't know what you expect me to say honestly."

"You're supposed to be a normal child and tell me how your day went, and if anything important or eventful happened," Mom said giddily.

"But Mom she isn't normal," I heard one of my brother's say. Even though my brothers were identical twins, it wasn't that hard to figure out which one was which, and this case, I knew exactly who was speaking.

"Elijah," I rolled my eyes. "Why don't you just go play Call of Duty with Felix or something?"

Elijah appeared in the video chat, smiling the same mischievous smile he always did when he wanted to get on my nerves. His brown eyes were full of amusement and I could see his messy, dark blonde hair wasn't brushed like usual. I even noticed the new bands they put on his braces. "I can't play with Felix right now. He's too busy doing homework or something," he said, picking at the wood on the desk.