I keep typing and re-typing a simple "How are you?" message.
Talk about pathetic.
"Who are you typing to for so long? Do you even have that many friends?", Maggie who's eating some chips and snuggling next to Mom, catches me off guard by interrupting my typing mission.
I roll my eyes and pocket my phone not wanting to engage in any conversation with her.
"Well?", my mom looks at me with raised eyebrows.
"What?"
"Answer her.", she says as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"It's nothing", I shrug and continue to type out my essay homework on my laptop.
Maggie and my mom mutter a sarcastic "okay" and get back to watching, I think, Hotel Transylvania.
After thirty minutes of typing out a sub-par essay, I decide to excuse myself to do...some other things.
"I'm gonna go downstairs.", I announce and I'm already up from the ground.
"Oh come on Matt, you're always running around, you hardly have time for me anymore. Watch a movie with me.", Maggie says and bats her eyelashes.
That little—
"Matt, It's not like you're gonna do anything important. Spend time with Maggie sweetheart.", my mom says, obviously falling for Maggie's, "I'm so lonely" act.
Hell, I've lived with that girl long enough to know she hates it when I watch something with her.
I can't blame her though, I have the annoying habit of commenting throughout any movie or show.
But I know the real reason why she wants to spend time with me.
Ever since she became convinced that I have a "secret girlfriend", she's been pestering me non-stop to tell her who it is. To give her credit, most of her guesses are; "the girl who drives you to school".
"Are you sure Maggie?", I ask through gritted teeth and her pout only becomes more.
"Of course. I would love to watch a movie with you." She says and I huff.
"See? Go on now. I'll call you down when it's time for lunch.", my mom says and goes out of the room.
To my utter surprise, Maggie plops down on her bed and continues scrolling through Netflix to find something to watch.
"What do you want to watch?", she asks her eyes not moving from the screen.
Two things are very wrong with this whole situation. One, she's not asking me about Sasha, and two, she's asking my opinion to pick out a movie.
I don't answer her and so she looks up with a "Are you gonna tell me or what?" look.
"Aren't you going to—Never mind", I begin but change my mind and move to my bed and fall on it.
"What was I going to Matty?" She asks with a lopsided smirk.
"Nothing. Just put on your movie and let's get this over with."
She huffs and puts on Hotel Transylvania 2. Forty minutes into the movie I'm bored to death but Maggie seems to be enjoying it. My hands itch to open my phone and text Sasha but I don't think that it's such a good idea, considering I have a sister who has zero idea of privacy.
I quickly glance at her and she seems deeply engrossed in the movie. So I decided to sneakily take my phone out.
I let out a small sigh of victory when I took it out and slowly tapped into Sasha's contact. My triumph lasts for 0.0005 seconds before my phone is snatched from my hand.
"Haha", Maggie shouts and runs over to her bed and sits on it, cross-legged.
"Maggie, we've been over this. No touching my phone without my permission.", I say but she doesn't respond but her eyes widen after a couple of seconds.
"Muffin?? Who is Muffin?"
I let out a sigh of defeat. There's no point hiding it from her.
There's nothing to hide dummy. She's not your girlfriend. My subconscious says.
"It's Sasha."
"Who? Oh, the girl you drive you to school? See, I always knew she was one."She says and begins scrolling up to see the previous messages.
"These messages...They're all so formal. She is your girlfriend, isn't she? I thought people type all sorts of things to their girlfriends.",
Where the hell is she getting all these from?
"She's not my girlfriend. For the millionth time, I don't have a girlfriend."
She tilts her head to one side in confusion.
"She's my friend", I say and it sounds so so wrong.
"Oh", Maggie says and I swear I saw her face drop for a quick second before she masks it with a grin.
"Why do you want to send her a message?", she asks and I roll my eyes.
"She wasn't there in school yesterday. And I kinda wanna know if she's, you know, fine."
"Why don't you ask her?", she asks like it's the obvious course of action.
Only if it were that easy...
I don't reply but I see her typing something. Before I can comprehend further, She says; "Done."
I pull the phone away and I see this text sent to Sasha;
"Are you okay? How's my little muffin doing?"
Oh dear god.
I feel like death.
"Georgina shoot me please" I mutter as I drag myself upstairs.
"Oh hush...It's just fatigue. You shouldn't have pulled all those all-nighters. Go now, get some more sleep baby. I'll bring some hot soup later." " she says and pushes me to my room.
"What will I ever do without you?", I ask, feeling emotional.
"Alright alright. Now go sleep", she shoos me away and goes down the stairs.
I smile a little but move into my room and fall face-first on the bed.
I fumble around for my phone and turn it on to see 59 messages.
Wow.
I swear to god that this is the first time I've gotten this many messages.
58 were sent yesterday. And all of it was in the Carpooling Clan group chat.
1 from Matt.
I open Matt's message at lightning speed and see the cutest message anyone has ever sent me.
Are you okay? How's my little muffin doing?
This made my fucking day.
I'm pretty sure I have a shit-eating grin on my face while I re-read the message for the fifth time.
Don't even get me started on the "my". I'm literally on cloud nine right now.
Is he being flirty?
Or is it friendly?
As much as I would like to believe the former, I'm 99% sure that it's the latter.
That thought alone dampens my mood a bit but I don't let it bother me too much. I'm going to type an equally "friendly" message. Or messages.
"Maggie...I swear to god, the next time—", I begin but I'm interrupted by her loud squeal.
"Look look she's typing back!", she beckons for me to sit and I do so hurriedly.
The typing bubble keeps appearing and disappearing and it's driving me insane. How is she going to react? Oh my god...What if she thinks I'm being flirty? What if she thinks I'm trying to make a move on her? That's a good thing, isn't it?
What if that costs our friendship?
Hell no.
The thing is, I'm normally quite confident when I talk to girls or flirt with them. Heck, I used to do them all the time back when I was in New Hampshire. But Sasha is different. I have this whole new level of fear of even being remotely flirty because I'm scared I'm going to lose her as a friend.
That's a horrible thought.
I would love to flirt with her, hell, I have plans of actually asking her out because I like her a lot but how can I do that if I don't know if she likes me the same way I like her?
"How long will she take? She's probably typing again and again...Like you", Maggie says and I glare at her.
After a while, the typing bubble disappears for a good two minutes.
That's it. Things are going to be super awkward between us when she comes back on Monday.
Fucking hell.
I let out a dejected sigh and Maggie's tiny hands pat my back which makes me smile a little.
Trust her to cause the mess and also make the affected person feel better.
"I'm sorry. I just got too excited.", she says and I playfully roll my eyes.
"Just don't touch my phone again.", I warn her but she just shrugs.
"Oh, I will."
I chuckle a little and she joins me. After a while she adds; "I don't like her. She could have at least replied. I don't see what I sent wrong."
Her defensiveness makes me smile and I only shake my head; "You didn't send anything wrong. She's a nice person, she's probably busy with something. She'll tell me at school, I think."
"Lunch!", my mum shouts.
"Come on.", she pulls me toward the door and I let her.
But before we can step out of the room's threshold, I hear the chime of a new message.
Maggie and I look at each other with wide eyes.
"Give us a few minutes Mommy", Maggie yells and I run to the bed.
We race to the bed together to get hold of the phone first.
She was able to take it first.
Damn it.
"Loser", Maggie mutters as she opens the text message. She reads the text message and a wide smile forms on her face.
"What? What is it? Maggie—", I move to snatch the phone but she moves it away quickly and continues reading the message.
After smiling and giggling while I was on the verge of having a mini panic attack, she throws the phone at me.
Literally throws it.
"Thank me later.", is all she says and runs down the stairs.
I read the messages and I mirror Maggie's expression.
"I'm doing much better. Thanks"
"Aww, did Matty miss me?"
I love a cocky Sasha.
I look at my messages with some pride.
I see the typing bubble almost instantly and I'm shaking waiting for his reply.
"Good to know that you're feeling better."
"I very much did. The two resident couples were being too lovey-dovey for my liking and I was feeling very lonely."
I smile at the messages and craft my own.
"Oh, you poor thing. I'm so sorry you had to go thru Anne and Jacob's snogging"
Is it even okay to discuss kissing with your crush? I mean the crush is one-sided but still...
"It was not only them..."
My eyes widen in shock...Sam and Nathan cannot possibly be engaging in PDA. Sam hates it so much that I've seen Nathan physically restrain himself.
"What the hell happened?"
"It's a long story..."
"Oh come on...Pretty please."
Matt is the laziest soul on Earth. I swear the boy hates typing and rarely does so. Even when he does it's always one-word replies.
This is the longest he's been online.
Impatience and my need to gossip get the best of me. So I hit the call button.
He picks up immediately.
"Hello beautiful.", He greets in his news anchor voice which sends warmth down south.
Good lord.
I compose myself before replying; "Hello dashing", I respond in the same cheerful voice.
Don't ask me what kind of confidence I got. I'll never know.
He just brings that from me.
"Wow. I like that. You should call me that often.", he replies and I roll my eyes.
He can't see it, idiot
"Hush... Now spill it. What happened? What made Nathan, the stoic emotionless Nathan, do something so brazen?"
He chuckles at my choice of words and I join in too. He laughs like an angel.
So much for me trying to be his friend huh?
"Why would you assume Nathan was the first to kiss?"
My jaw drops wide open; "There's no way Sam initiated it. She hates being intimate in public. I'll bet you my whole stash of uhmm, pencils if Sam started it."
He loves those pencils as much as I do.
"Those pencils? No way. Looks like it's my lucky day."
My already open jaw widens; "What happened?"
"Well...Yesterday was pretty unusual. A group of these girls came over to our table and started chatting us up. I don't know why they came over but they did. None of us were comfortable with their presence but things got a little weird when these girls became a tad too comfy with Nathan.
Jacob escaped with Anne, if you're wondering so it was just Nathan, myself, and Sam. So anyways, Nathan was so uncomfortable the whole time when one of the girls was clearly flirting with him, and mind you, Nathan did mention that Sam was his girlfriend.
But they didn't seem to understand that simple thing and continued to do whatever they were doing and Sam kinda lost it and just kissed him. She did, however, wish that she could given the girl a black eye instead. In her defense, she was super sweet to them until those girls became a little aggressive with their words."
I zoned out the moment he said that girls came over to that table.
And they did it yesterday.
The day I wasn't there.
What were they thinking?
I didn't miss the fact that he never mentioned if the girls flirted with him or not but I sure as hell know that they would have. I think his not mentioning that was his attempt at being modest.
"Did anyone flirt with you?", I blurt out and I wish I had just kept my mouth shut.
No no no no no.
"Huh?", he asks and I close my eyes in embarrassment.
Can I just end the call?
But life throws a bone sometimes cause at this exact moment I get a call from Anne.
I will cherish that girl for life.
"Oh Matt, could you hold on for a minute? Anne's calling me.", I say.
"Oh, uhm, okay? Yeah, We'll talk later yeah?" He says and I hear some disappointment in his voice.
"No no no, Would it be okay if you can be on hold for a while? I'll just ask what she wants. Is that okay?"
"No problem", he replies instantly and I smile.
I accept Anne's incoming call.
"How's my favorite girl doing?"
"I'm all good. What's up? Matt's on the other line. Make it quick."
Anne's going to have a field day with this revelation but I don't care. I don't want him waiting for too long.
"Aww, cute. Well, I was going to ask if you're feeling better for a movie day in my condo. The guys minus Matt and Sam are coming over. Matt said he couldn't cause he wasn't going to deal with our cuddling and all. Show off. But yeah, I was hoping that if you came over. Matt dearest would reconsider..." She says and I get super excited.
"Why wasn't I informed of this?", I say immediately feeling left out.
"Oh quit it. If you read the shit ton of messages in the group chat then you'd know", She says and I feel stupid for not reading them.
"I'll be there and I'll also convince Matt," I say and end the call.
I remove Matt from hold; "Hey hey, I'm so so sorry about the wait."
"It's fine. You took much less time than what I'd expected, not that I'm complaining."
"She was telling me about a movie day. She also told me you weren't going..."
"Can you blame me? I didn't want to be third wheeling."
"What if I said that we could third wheel together?", I say and bite my lip out of nervousness.
"Say no more. I'll be there.", he replies and I chuckle.
It's going to be a fun day.
Hiiii!!
What did you think?
This chapter took me so long to write cause I didn't know how to begin...
Side note, this is actually a part 1 of the 25th chapter. I wanted the 25th chapter to have some kind of special significance but I also didn't want to make it too big.
Tough times.
But, I decided to break it up into two parts for you guys...
So I hope you enjoyed Part 1.
It was really fun to write actually. I had a blast.
Coming back;
Question for the day! What's the most creative character name you can think of? Let me know cause it will be really useful for me to include it in some of my future stories if I plan on writing more 😏😏
Anyways...
Thank you so much for reading and making it with me through this wonderful journey of 25 chapters. I absolutely love love love every single moment on this platform and I hope that I continue to write more and more stories...
Also, I'm not sure if this is a temporary thing or if it's permanent but currently( 8th May 2024), Wattpad has removed the personal messaging feature which sucks but I guess they must have their own reason for it.
Oh well.
So I don't think you can PM me personally but I will soon think of a way for us connect and post it in my bio.
So that's the news for now...
As always,
I love you guys so much, I hope that your love and support for Sasha and Matt will continue through your votes, artwork, book covers, song recs, anything at all...
I appreciate each and every reader from the bottom of my heart and so yeah...
Have fun reading and ,for you up and coming writers, like myself, out there...Have fun writing!
Love you all!❤️❤️
P.S : The Author's note is a whole ass chapter on its own! I'm sorry I just got carried away in expressing my gratitude...