"So, tell me, Annie, why were you wearing that mask?" says Lana, Chance's mom, as the both of us sit in the living room of her home, across from each other, just a coffee table sitting in the middle, separating us.
I look at her, startled by her question.
We haven't even started a proper conversation and she's already asking me a question like this...? How nice.
Chance and I have decided to take a break from what we were doing, which resulted in us eating lots of snacks and watching television. We were talking about something that we were watching when we heard a loud knock on the door, it was his mom and so, that led me to be sitting down here with her, while Chance is in his room.
"Um..." I say, looking away from her to look elsewhere, then I quickly think of something believable as I look back to her, "Well, it was a dare from my friends... We were playing truth or dare, and of course, they wanted me to pick dare, which I did. They dared me to wear a mask and not speak to anyone for the whole time..."
She looks at me, almost as if she could sense that I'm lying. I look down at my lap, feeling nervous all of a sudden.
"Really...?" she says in a question-thinking way, and I nod my head furiously with a smile that shows my teeth, looking back up at her.
It's almost dark outside, meaning that my mom will be here for me soon. I've never been so, so eager for my mom to get here in like ever. And now, at this very moment, I really need her to get here before Lana starts asking me any more questions that I really don't want to answer.
"Yeah," I answer her question.
Lana stares at me longer as she tries to get something out of me, or is probably thinking of something to say to get me to react.
"Chance told me," she says, and just like I've stated before, she's trying to make me react to something that she's trying to get out of me.
"He told you what?" I now ask, wanting to know what she's talking about. I trust Chance, that he wouldn't say anything about what I'm going through at school, especially to his mom and brother.
I can feel another pair of eyes on me and I slightly look to the staircase to find Chance standing there, silently. I look away from him so that Lana wouldn't notice to also look at him too, to ruin his cover.
"Well..." she says, taking a quite long pause before she starts to speak again, "...he told me about what has been happening to you at the school, about how you would get teased and bullied by... your friends..."
I furrow my eyebrows as I look at Chance quietly, and I try to pretend that I'm looking at nothing in particular. I watch as Chance shakes his head mouthing "no", probably trying to tell me that it's not true, which I believe by the serious look on his face.
I swallow hard as I look back to her. "Oh, really, well, that's what he thinks, but it's not actually true. As I told you before, it was just a stupid dare from my friends..."
"Okay, then... I understand," she says, crossing a leg over the other as she leans back into the seat. "Sorry, if I came off indifferent... It's just that I had some suspicions, especially with a girl, who comes to my house wearing a mask."
I smile at her, "No worries, I should be the one to say sorry. Someone wearing a mask to my home would surely creep me out."
She laughs just as my phone vibrates. It's a message from my mom, telling me that she's here to pick me up.
I stand up and so does Lana. "I should get my things, my mom is here for me," I say, looking at her with a small smile on my face.
"Okay, sweetie," she says, and I watch as she opens her arms and hugs me. I hug her back, and we then let go of each other. "See you next time that you come back here."
I nod my head and walk away, heading to the stairs. I thought that Chance would still be standing here, but he's not, so I head up the stairs and to his room where my bookbag is.
I open his room door and enter to find him standing there with a slight smile on his face, looking at me.
"Leaving already?" He asks.
"Yeah," I say, walking over to my bookbag that's just sitting on the floor, leaned against the wall.
I pick up my bookbag and move both the straps over my shoulders as I walk back over to Chance to face him.
"Sorry for my mom being a bit too... blunt with what she says," he says to me, and I shrug my shoulders.
"Our... talk wasn't that bad..." I say, even though I know Lana and I's talk was a little awkward, well, to me it was. "Well, see you at school tomorrow."
He nods, and I turn around to leave his room to go meet my mom outside, but I feel his hand on my shoulder, causing me to turn back around.
Just as we make eye contact, I feel lost in his dark, swirling eyes. I look into his eyes, trying to find something in them. He looks deep into mine, seeming to be trying to do the same thing - searching my eyes for something, anything. We stand here for what feels like an hour but is only a few seconds.
"Yeah?" I ask faintly as I quickly break the eye contact with him, averting my eyes to look somewhere else.
"I just wanted to say it was brave of you to take off your mask, knowing that you've been through a lot," he says, and I look back to him to see that he was also caught up in the moment as he blinks a few times. "It was pretty cool how you actually took off your mask in front of me. I won't ever forget that moment..."
I smile at him. "I won't ever forget that moment, too," I say and hug him, leaning my head on his shoulder. "I'm really grateful to have you as a friend, Chance."
"Thanks. Right back at you, Annie," he says, hugging me back.
I let go of him, and take a step back, feeling sad at the moment with tears slowly forming in my eyes. I've never felt this way with any of my other friends, well, fake friends. They've never been there for me as Chance has, nor have they ever made me feel happy like he has. This is why I think Chance and I will forever be... friends... no matter what happens.
"Well, I should get going before my mom starts to worry or something," I laugh lightly, using my index finger to wipe away the tear that was almost about to fall from the corner of my eye. "See you later, Chance."
I open the door, and just before I leave, I hear him say "Bye, Annie" softly.
I'm outside the house, walking to my mom's car that's just parked outside the driveway. I walk over to the car, opening the car door, and sitting down inside. I put my bookbag down to the floor of the passenger seat.
"Hey, Mom," I say, looking at her as she talks on her phone with probably a business worker or a co-worker.
"Hello, hun," she says, giving me a quick look before looking back straight ahead to talk to whoever is on the phone.
She then hangs up the phone when she notices there's something different. In a quick motion, her head snaps in my direction. Her mouth hangs wide open as I can see tears start to form in her eyes.
"Wha..." she can hardly finish her sentence as the tears start to flow. Before I know it, I'm embraced by her. I hug her back as the tears that have dried up forms, again, but this time starts to fall down my cheeks, wetting my eyes, and possibly my mom's shirt.
"Oh, Annie," she squeezes me tighter, "I'm so happy you're back!"
"Me too, Mom, me too," I say, then we both let go of each other.
She wipes away the tears from her eyes with her hands, clearing her throat. "We should get going," she says, putting her hands on the steering wheel.
I smile at her as she drives off. I turn my head to look out the window at the dark, night sky filled with twinkling stars that appear close but are at a far distance.
* * *
A/N:
Hello there, lovelies! So, this is chapter 12... Yayyy!!
What do you think of Lana? Do you think she came off a bit, you know, different...? Or do you understand why she did that?
I just gotta get this out there, Chance and Annie are so freaking cute like omg XD!!!
Another thing I have to get out there... I switched to so many different songs just to find the perfect one to help me write this chapter. Yeah, you can say that I was going through some really big writer's block, but hey, I'm not the only one!! :))
Thank you so, so very much for reading my book and getting this far! I really appreciate it like, really. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have gotten this far in writing this book! Please leave a vote if you liked this chapter, and leave your comment(s) for me to read because you know how much I love reading them !!:D
- Tanya<3
P.S. if you've gotten this far with my long a$$ Author's Note, yay! The pic below is a poem that I'll be reciting for one of my classes, and I just wanted to share it with you guys. I think it relates to a lot of people in this world, and it also seems to have a quite good meaning to this book -
Song: Jungle by Saint Mesa (Shallou Remix)