I lay on my new, irritatingly comfortable, memory foam mattress staring at the overkill chandelier on my ceiling. I have a strong distaste for this room. It's too prissy, and quintessential, and the walls are painted a disgusting shade of pastel pink. This room is too much like the room next to it. In fact, they are exactly the same, besides the contents of both of the closets. And much like both of these rooms, all perfect and poised, is the girl inside that room next door. Her name is Lana Lansbury.
As I'm thinking of all of the things I despise about this room and that girl, my phone starts vibrating and blaring my ringtone, a Nirvana song that my mom despises. I pick it up, very skeptical that anyone decent is calling at this time of night, and sure enough, I don't recognize the number. I decline the call and try to go back to forming my mental list, but my phone only starts ringing again with the same unidentifiable number glowing on the glossy screen in front of me. I don't know the caller, but if that's true, then what harm could be done by answering my phone right now? Finally, with a very disconcerting mindset, I answer the call.
I speak clearly and evenly. "Hello?"
"Ove? Nova, it's me. Oh, Ove, I miss you so much. Listen, I need you to help me. With Lana."
Holy shit. Deep down I know that I'm relieved that he's safe, or at least safe enough to call me, but as his cool voice flows through the speaker of my phone, unaddressed anger flows through my veins.
"Haven't I already helped you enough? Where the hell even are you? And, my bad, but I would've thought that things with you and Lana were going swell. Everyone is worried sick. Including that little devil-spawn Juliet, your Lana. And, um, including m-me," I choke, stifling a sob.
Apparently that anger had now turned slightly towards sadness. I heard a low rumble that sounded like laughter drift through my phone and into my ear
"What? What's so funny, Jason?"
Nope, nevermind, I'm still very angry.
"Only Nova Moongale would ever be able to use the word 'swell' successfully in the twenty-first century," he declared. More laughter came after he spoke.
"Oh, Jason," now I was laughing. Maybe I'm just, I don't know, bipolar or something.
"Ove, I need you to do one last thing for me"
"Jason, you'll probably be the death of me," I thought out loud. "That being said, added to the fact that I'm probably not very intelligent, of course I'll help you."
⭐
I was right and wrong about the statements I made earlier. I was wrong because I did know the person holding the phone that had the strange number that was calling me in the middle of the night; I was right because the boy that called me, Jason Ryder, is not a decent person.