Seeing Shane Gray ✓

nine | daughter

*.*.*.*.*.*

September 26

"Do you think she's okay? I don't."

I don't answer and neither does Marla. We don't know what else to tell Racheal who has already heard the entire story from both of us. She could hardly believe it, how someone as Riley could shut us out like this. We're friends. We have been friends for over three years. Ever since Marla and I found Riley sitting alone in the café, we've been inseparable. Racheal joined us soon after because she was the only one on the badminton team with me. How, then, after everything, can Riley get up and leave us for a boy?

Let alone a boy like Carlos.

"She called you a bitch," Racheal repeats in disbelief.

"Almost," Marla and I speak up in correction, looking at each other and laughing.

Racheal smiles too, folding her arms on the table and staring into the distance. Marla's phone rings and she starts telling Hashir everything that happened last night. As for me, I recline in my seat with my arms folded across my chest and my mind elsewhere.

"She didn't come today," Racheal notes.

I hum and nod, biting my lower lip. I hadn't expected her to show up. She was drinking last night, the signs of alcohol consumption written on her flushed face and evident in her unfiltered words. When I saw Carlos, though, I hoped I was wrong. If he could make it to school despite bleary eyes and drinking only water, Riley would too. She isn't accustomed to drinking, though, so probably took the day off.

As Marla talks to Hashir, Racheal begins biting the nail of her blue-painted thumb. As for me, I stare into the distance. I don't notice who I'm staring at until he raises his eyebrows, smiling from all the distance. I blink a couple of times, my perception catching up with my senses so that I realize Shane Gray is smiling at me.

"I saw Shane Gray last night," I mumble, telling no one in particular.

Seeing Riley and getting Marla to calm down so she wouldn't crash her car in anger, the thought of Shane had completely slipped my mind. Now, the image of him standing in that dark alley comes back to me, vivid and clear.

"Shane Gray? Where?" Racheal asks, looking towards his table.

I avert my gaze without a smile and Shane looks away too.

"At that party Riley was at," I tell Racheal.

"Really?" Racheal frowns, as surprised as I was when I saw him. "Shane isn't the party type. Are you sure it wasn't someone who looked like him?"

I shake my head. "I talked to him, it was definitely him."

"What was he doing there?"

I open my mouth but freeze, not really having an answer. What was Shane Gray doing? My first instinct is to say that he was taking some kind of pills without anyone noticing. That doesn't sound right, though, because anyone would automatically expect drugs.

My eyes rotate toward him and I see him laughing and talking as always, nothing different. Unlike Carlos who has bleary eyes and messy hair, Shane is neither hungover nor out of character. He's the same as ever, smiling, immaculately dressed. Perfect.

Sighing, I end up shrugging instead. "I asked him but he didn't give an answer so maybe he was there with his friends or something."

Racheal nods, still frowning. Marla hangs up at last, pissed off but more alert than she was a few minutes ago.

"Hashir says we need to do something," she announces.

And of course, because the mature college-student Hashir says so, Racheal nods. I don't have a problem with it, to be honest. We're still unsure how to act in such a situation. Neither being nice nor being bitches has been much use, I'm all ears if Hashir has a more practical plan.