A/N: unedited chapter, btw
In the following week, the girls, my sister and I went through an exhilarating rollercoaster, all ranging from my sister and me being introduced to the Harmonizers, to the girls letting us meet Simon. And might I say this, he wasn't as intimidating as he looked, that I learned. However, this week, we had a new problem. Apparently, the girls were going to have a special meet and greet and charity performance in San Jose, which would mean a five hour drive in their tour bus from the previous tour. We were not allowed to come with them because it would be a short time there, and we'd just get in the way. Besides, even if we were allowed to go, not all seven of us would be able to fit in the tour bus.
For the moment, I was currently enjoying my freedom from school for the weekend. Dealing with school here in California was way different from what I'd remembered with going to school back in Texas. And to think that I was actually doing well in my classes. The soft hum of my bedroom tv played in the background as I wrote and jotted down little poems in my journal. I always had a better time at writing if I had some type of noise, usually music, playing in the background. And this time, it just so happened to be the tv. It was, in a way, a good addition to the room, but I had never always been a fan of watching television. Finally, I closed my journal to see if anything was worth watching on tv.
Bored after spending too much time scrolling endlessly through more than fifty channels, I decided to call Carly to come over and hang out with me.
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"Hey Izzy," Carly greeted me while sauntering into my bedroom, her using my new pet name that she came up with. We weren't a thing yet, but I did notice that Lauren took more caution when letting Carly come over. I'd have to speak of that when I got the chance.
"Hey," I replied, my once chill being suddenly filled with excitement just from her voice. Only she could do things like that to me. Hmp, maybe I was really head over heels for her...
As she sat down at the foot of my bed, her long brown hair pinned up neatly in a French braid, I thought of how to follow up after our 'talk'. Yes, we had texted afterwards, but our conversations seemed to wander around the whole "liking each other and kissing in the park" thing. And it was if she just wanted to forget about the whole ideal.
"I'm bored, and this whole awkward talking thing is not helping."
"I'm sorry. I'm just..." I breathed in slowly. "I finally told my mom, about us, and it went well, I guess." I gazed down at my fingers as if they were the most interesting things in the world.
"Obviously it didn't go well if you're acting like that. What really happened, Izzy?" Her tone forced me to stare into her eyes, them being filled with concern. I cracked. I told her of the whole conversation I had had with Lauren, and how I cried into Mom's shoulder. Though I left out the part about liking both her, Jada and Amber. Well, maybe Amber. I wasn't sure about her just yet.
"Aww, that's cute. I'm proud that you did that." Her arms then wrapped around me, and I melted in her embrace. We held each other for a minute, and she played with my hair. Soon, my bedroom door opened, and I heard the voice of my sister talking on her phone. She was completely unaware of the position Carly and I were in.
"Yeah, and Jacob said Carly and—" She stopped suddenly, aware that the said girl was right in front of her. I felt Carly tense up on me, and she slowly moved her hands to her side. My gaze went back and forth between my sister and her. She seemed to be glaring at her.
"Huh? Oh, um, I'll call you later. Bye, Kelsey." She hung up her phone and continued to have her feet planted centerline in our doorway.
"Hey Sofía," Carly's voice rose an octave, and I cursed myself for not telling my sister earlier about my sexuality. The room grew tense for a minute as no one uttered a word. The only sound was the music from my phone that had on classical music, and I moved from my previous position to turn it off. When Sof came into the room, she plopped down on her bed. I took notice of how her mood went from happy to cold and distant. Carly continued to timidly twiddle her fingers as she had now scooted about two feet away from me on the bed. Agreeing that this so-called awkward silence was enough—again—I broke the silence.
"I heard that Kelsey and Jaden are thing now, right?" I asked the older Mexican, to which she nodded her head slowly; it was as if she was unsure of how to answer that question. I turned toward Carly, who was still silent, and continued back where I started—mindlessly playing with Carly's hair. I heard a small sigh of relief breathe through her lips, and I gave a sideways smile.
Sofía, now assessing the situation completely different, decided to turn her own attention to her phone. We stayed like this for a while, me going from playing with Carly's hair, to writing in my journal. Finally, Ally called to us from downstairs, letting us know that dinner would be ready in about ten minutes.
"Izzy, do you want to go to the park with me tomorrow?" The hazel eyed girl questioned. I agreed, and she gathered up her stuff hastily.
"Wait. Where are you going?" I asked, a hint of sadness in my voice. "Aren't you going to stay for dinner?"
She hesitated before replying, "Y-yeah. I g-guess so. I mean, if it's fine with her." She then pointed behind me to my sister, who was glaring at her again. I rolled my eyes and turned back to the stuttering girl.
"Duh. You don't have to ask her," I said with annoyance in my voice. Sofía just gave a scoff and rolled her eyes. I grabbed ahold of Carly's arm and dragged her downstairs. I was confused of Carly's new nervous behavior because she was usually always confident and outspoken. I'd have to ask about that later.
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"So, are you spending the night here, Carly?" Camila questioned while eating her spaghetti. "'Cause if you are, you can sleep in the girls' room with Bella." I nearly choked on my food as I quickly went to grab my glass of water. As I was coughing-slash-drinking the water, Carly tried patting my back affectionately. Lauren gave a nervous laugh, and Sofía and Dinah both stared oddly at our reactions. After fully recovering from my coughing spurt, I replied.
"Um," I drawled, "that depends on if Cee wants to. I'm not sure."
I saw Carly quirk an eyebrow at my new nickname out of the corner of my eye, but she said nothing more about it.
"Well, my mom said it's okay, then, yeah. Um, I guess so." She stumbled upon her words.
"Y'all have been acting weird today. Is something going on?" Sofía asked.
"Yeah, I could've sworn that you and Carly weren't that nervous last week. Did you guys get in trouble or something?" Normani asked us. I gulped, and Carly gazed down at her plate.
I could've just came right out and said it. I could've just said, "Oh, it's just that Carly and I really like each other, and we're dating..." But I didn't. I kept my mouth shut while Mom decided to intervene this conversation.
"I think these girls are just nervous about the upcoming school dance, right girls?" She asked, her tone being that "just go with the flow" sound. I nodded my head slowly but surely and replied.
"Yeah, um. Yeah." I added on, bringing back up my previous start-on of a conversation with Sofía, "Kelsey and Jaden are surely to be the hottest couple for the dance. I wouldn't be surprised if they won King and Queen."
Sofía gave me an odd glance, to which I smiled shyly back at. Why everyone gave me these weird glances all the time, I had no idea.
The replies were a faint "yeah", and I continued to steer the topic in that direction the whole dinner time.
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Finally, it was Monday, and I was in an annoyed mood because of the events that had occurred the previous morning. If it were not for the constant screaming of all the girls rushing to get ready for time in the studio, I probably would have been able to make it to school on time. Also, I had to deal with rushing to get ready because of the fact that my alarm didn't go off. How wonderful.
As I sat down at my desk after explaining in two sentences of why I was late, I found myself suddenly droning in and out of focus throughout the lesson. There was seriously nothing wrong with the teacher's lesson, but it's just that I was not in the mood to write nor read, which was something very unusual for me to say.
"Isabella, would you like to explain why Jonas felt in need to say that he was quite apprehensive? Why do you think he chose that specific word to express how he was feeling?" The teacher, Ms. Adams, questioned me. Slightly startled, I was quick to reply a short answer since I had already read that book about two months beforehand. Though, Ms. Adams ignored my reply and went on with the lesson.
Some help I am.
I then tuned back into the lesson and slowly made it through the class period without another question.
Later that day, before lunch, Carly came up to me while I was struggling to open my locker. Key word, struggling.
"Here, let me help you with that." The brunette then gazed at my schedule, that had my locker combination, and turned the dial a few times before unlocking it with ease. I gaped at how fast she was able to do that.
"How?" The one answered question seemed to breeze through my lips in amazement.
"It take practice, I guess." She shrugged her shoulders. "And anyways, I wanted to ask if you wanted to sit with me at lunch again."
I grinned and tentatively peered around the corner to see that the hallway was empty. Everyone had already it to the cafeteria, I assumed. Secretly, I gave her a short kiss on her lips and nodded my head.
"Yeah, uhh, um, I...agh!" She stuttered playfully, and I chuckled at the fact that I could still get her to do that.
Then, I pulled her arm toward the cafeteria, and we sat down at my table with my friends, Caleb, Harmony and Amber. I chose to sit next to Carly but across from Amber, just so that I could have both girls in my eye of view. To me, it felt like a genius plan.
"So, Hannah said that the Harmonizers are going crazy about you in social media," Harmony stated, popping a grape into her mouth. I checked Instagram on my phone to see that indeed I had gained about four thousand extra followers. Who knew that the girls could have such an impact on my account?
"The fans seriously were crazy during the live stream, and I think one of them called me 'Babygirl Jauregui'," I said, using air quotation marks on the nickname. I wasn't too surprised when I saw the responses of the Harmonizers pop up in the comment section. Just knowing that one of those Harmonizers knew me from the orphanage, however, fazed me just a bit.
Suddenly, I felt a warm arm graze against my skin and my throat close up.
"Hey, so do you want to hang out at my place later today?" Amber asked, and my cheeks went warm. Yeah, I could admit that I was falling into a love triangle (or should I say, love quadrilateral), but I didn't mind it. I just knew that Carly came first, and soon the others did too. The only problem for me was not trying to fall for all three of the girls: Carly, Amber and Jada. However, as simple as it seemed, I couldn't stop it.
"Well, I was going to hang out with Carly, but yeah, I guess so."
"But, um, I thought you wanted to hang with me," the hazel eyed girl said. "Like, if you're going over to Amber's, then that's fine, but you said that today we'd hang out."
"Cee, we've already hung out the last three days. I'm going to spend this week with Amber and Harmony, okay?" Deep, down inside, I knew wanted to spend the whole week with Carly, and only Carly. But I knew that spending too much time with her would raise questions that I did not feel like answering.
Carly sighed and pouted. "Okay."
I frowned and suddenly felt bad, but when I turned to look at the girl in front of me, my frown arose at the sight of a happy Amber.
"Hey, let's finish up eating because I don't want to be late to Mr. Montgomery's class again," I demanded.
"Yeah, that was pretty crazy," Carly agreed, her voice raising an octave on the word pretty.
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A/N: Are there possibly enough apologies in the world that I can use to say how sorry I am for the late update? No? Okay then.
But seriously, I apologize to everyone who had to wait for this chapter, only for it to be horrible. Now, I'm not going to make up any type of excuse because this is all on my part. I knew that I had to write, but I let procrastination get in the way, along with other important stuff that I had to take care of.
I wonder if any of you are even still reading this.
Hmm.
Well, I'll stop rambling. Though, I want to give a shoutout to korslay , who made this bomb ass cover (even though y'all already knew this) and 5Hreads_camren , who has been an important reader to me (not that the rest of you who read my book aren't important). She is a very good writer, and you should check out her books. Also, you may be hearing a lot from her in the future chapters 😉
Okay then. Bye. Oh, and don't forget to vote and comment, please.
Your fellow unicorn leader,
Mikayla 🦄