The Materialists | Book 1 + 2 ✔

20 | Tic-Tac-Toe

Fuck you. But I didn't say that. Instead, I smiled, nodded my head, and also stood up. "Follow me," I said, though I wasn't completely sure I knew where the bathroom was either.

I took him a good distance from the dining room, though. Far enough where I couldn't hear Mother's annoying voice and Father's annoying laugh.

"Do you only have one bathroom or something?" James suddenly asked.

"No. But I'm not exactly sure where it is so while you go find it I'll be in here," I answered, sitting down on the couch in front of the fireplace in one of the living rooms.

"You're a wonderful help, thank you," Sarcasm. But instead of going to find the bathroom, he sat down in the armchair next to the fireplace as well. "Just to be clear by the way, I'm not interested in fucking you, despite what you think."

Wait. What? Despite what I think? He can't quite possibly think I wanted to be here, that I wanted him to be here. Oh God, the ego. "Don't flatter yourself, I don't want you to be here either."

"Well then, I'm glad that's settled. I assume this dinner is more for us than them?" He nodded his head in the direction we came from, the dining room.

"You're right. Wouldn't be the first time though."

"Yeah...okay but, where is the bathroom. I wasn't exactly lying about needing to go."

I shrugged. "I really don't know. I don't even live here. But it's probably one of those doors in the hallway. They lock all of them except the bathroom doors anyway so it should be easy to find."

James nodded and stood up, going back through the hallway we left from. Pulling out my phone, I sighed. Different texts from different people. But only one caught my eye. Sliding open the message, I scrolled up. 23 unread texts from him. The last one seemed the most urgent, which was shocking despite they rest were just him begging me to answer, and then asking why I even bothered to call if I was going to ignore him anyway.

Before I could read the full paragraph, my phone glitched out. Furrowing my eyebrows, I tried to scroll down. These fucking iPhones, I thought. It hadn't been the first time it happened, usually, you just turn it off and on again. But I wasn't paying attention.

I wasn't paying attention when it swiped to the side. And while I tried to get back at read his text, it clicked the phone button. And I was calling him. And then I panicking. And then I was turning my phone off and on again like that would stop it. And I was just scared to even look at my phone screen. My heart was beating too fast, and though I telling myself to just hang up, I didn't want to. I don't think I didn't want to. In reality, I wanted to hear his perfect voice again, and ignoring his texts, another thing I didn't want to do, was just me trying to distance myself before all the feelings came back. But it was too late to snap out of it and do something sensible.

Because by the time the first tear fell from my eye, it was already too late to try and avoid it. Because I didn't want to avoid it anymore.

"Laurene?"

(VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION AT THE END DON'T SKIP PLEASE)

Song Of The Chapter:

I don't know if you understand the title but: there's x's and o's in the game tic tac toe, and the song is called ex calling, and she's calling her ex, and to her love is a game and there's an ex in the game. 

LMAO THAT WAS A TERRIBLE JOB EXPLAINING IT. I was trying to be poetic but I don't think it worked 🙈

Anywho here's another chapter.

Don't think too much about James he's kind of irrelevant and you'll probably never see him again. It was just to build up the plot to this point.

Thank you so much for 800 reads btw! It's growing so quickly!

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