JULIAN (WHO TRUSTS ME) DEAN 😁
4:59PM
Julian:
can you come over?
help me with Miss Incomplete?
Francena:
i have homework.
Julian:
me too. we can work on it together while we work on Miss Incomplete
Francena:
i don't know man
Julian:
please Francena, i need help
Francena:
am I just a booty call to you
Julian:
...
what?
Francena:
a person you call anytime you need help with something. but instead of sex, this time, it's Miss Incomplete
Julian:
what? no!
I saw Julian was typing something long as the speech bubble appeared. I laughed, enjoyed my fun and added.
Francena:
i'm kidding.
i'll see you later
Read at 5:08PM
"Dad, I'm leaving," I announced as I take my backpack, phone and my keys off the hook. Footsteps trembles the wooden floor as my 6'3 father appears from his office and in the foyer. He looks at me, expectantly. His eyes forming over my attire before finding my eyes.
"Where are you going?" He spoke curiosity, as I rolled my eyes. My grandma accidentally spilled that a boy entered this house other than Graham and that made my father delirious to who it was. Grandma even spilled his name, and made my father run suspicious on this new guy friend I have named Julian.
"To a friend's house — and before you ask, yes, it is that guy," I answered his question prematurely, crack open the door.
"Reileen, I trust you, but not allowing him to meet me and let me run a security check on your boyfriend is a bit—"
"I swore we are not dating. And I continue on that oath. Do I have to explain it to you again? I'm helping him with a project, not unzipping his pants."
He opened his mouth to replied before closing. "I-I don't know where that sexual influence came from but—"
"It was from Graham, not Julian. It was a joke, a mistake I made to give it to you and I'll live with it."
"I just—" He sighs, removing the glasses off his nose, "you're growing up and one day you're going to have a boyfriend and its my duty to secure him as the perfect guy for you. As a father, I should have that opportunity."
"—And you'll get to terrorise my boyfriend as much as you want," I declare with a wave of my hand, sighing, "when I get one. I just don't have one now, so lay waste on your threats and questions about his intentions about me, and just wait."
"Alright," he comes forward and plants a kiss on my forehead. "Have fun. Don't do anything too bad that I need to pay bail, okay?"
"Aw, man that ruins tonight's plans," I grumble, smiling at my father. He ruffles my hair as I push his big hand off my head. "Dad!"
"What? If it's not your boyfriend, you shouldn't care about what you looked, right?"
"I'm not talking about that," I rolled my eyes, "your watch brushed against my forehead. I think I got a scratch."
"Oh, sorry sweetheart," my dad comes to examine the spot he touches. I chuckle, pushing him off.
"It's okay, just let me leave before I get another one," I declare, taking a step out the door. I turn back around, almost forgetting. "Love you dad," I state, "love you Kenji!" I yelled, hearing Kenji yells back a reply from his room. My grandma was out right now, probably hanging out with some old friends.
I close the door behind me and head towards the car, reversing out the driveway soon enough and heading straight to Julian's house.
Minutes later and I found myself greeting the porch. I exhale, ringing the doorbell. My hands fidgeting with the keys chain as I hear barking from inside the house. The door swings opens, revealing Jaycee dressed in joggers and a tee shirt.
"Francena?" She bends down and pick up Apollo, stopping him from running out the door, "what are you doing here?"
"Umm," I begin, never gotten the full clearance on whether I'm allowed to tell his sister—or just about anyone—about Miss Incomplete. "I—"
"She's with me, sis," Julian appears at the doorway and swings his arm around his sister's shoulder. He scratches Apollo's ear before speaking, "why are you so nosy?"
She turns to her brother, shooting him a threatening look, "don't call me nosy, Jay. You know I hate that!" She hits her brother's shoulders as he begins to defend himself with both arms in the air, backing away from the door.
"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry, stop!" Jaycee stops hitting her brother before straightening herself back up.
"And for the record, I wasn't nosy. I think I have full rights when one of my friends turn up at our house for no reason..." She pauses for a minute, "...or is there an actual reason?"
She turns back to me, sudden realisation crossed over her face, "oh my god! Is it that project?!"
I shook my head, bringing my finger to her lips, "no, Jaycee, it's not that type of project! And No, it's not whatever you're thinking!"
I turn to Julian as I notice he was laughing, enjoying my struggle. I shot a look that beg him to help me, and he holds out his hand; explaining he was sobering up before going into action.
"Julian, is there something you want to tell me?"
"Nothing other than the fact that you have spinach in your teeth," Julian states, pointing to her lips and a slight smile appeared on his lips. His sister looks at him suspiciously; but walks away to where I believe in a direction of a mirror. Julian looks at me, a full smile on his lips, true, "Hey, Francena."
A smile found its way to my lips and I forgotten about the event that just happened moments ago. "Hey, Julian," I greet as I invited myself in. I switched out of my shoes and begin walking towards the living room area.
"So, what did Cee meant when she said something about a project?" Julian asks once I dropped my backpack on the couch. I turn to him, heat drawn to my cheeks.
"I swear you're like your sister," I declare, holding out a finger before explaining myself. He chuckles. "By it, it was nothing. I told Jaycee that I had a project with you but I didn't disclose the name that it was MI."
"MI?"
I look towards the direction Jaycee went and lowered my voice, "Miss Incomplete."
Julian laughs again, shaking his head as he makes his way to his couch and takes a seat. "I think it's okay to say the word here; this is a safe zone."
"Alright," I shrug, taking a seat on the floor, in front of the coffee table. "Just so you know, I never got full clearance on anything so... I didn't know."
"You could tell people, Francena,"
"Yeah, but I didn't, but I thought what if we accidentally tell the copy— Miss Incomplete herself, and she covers her tracks even more."
"But why is she sending hints?"
"To get you to like her but luring you deep before you get the chance and before you get to escape, and then she reveals." He looks at me dumbfound at my conspiracy. I sigh. "Or maybe she just wants to tell you who she is in the most complicated way."
"That sounds about right," Julian nods, as he pulls himself on the floor with me.
"So, homework or Miss Incomplete?"
"Probably homework," Julian declares, getting up. "so we can get it over with and then focus on Miss Incomplete. Plus, I need help on those worksheets Patterson gave us today."
"Speaking to the right girl," I declare, "do you have yours with you right now?"
"Yeah," he nods, "I'll be right back." He exits out of the living room and heads upstairs, his footsteps fading from loud stomps to low crunches.
Jaycee reappears and stops herself at the kitchen serving bar, eating some yoghurt in her hands. "So, you and my brother, huh?"
"No, Jaycee, I've already told you—it's a project."
"Hmm." She hums, not entirely too convinced with my words. "Whatever you say then."
"Where's Apollo?"
"Outside in the yard." She jabs her pinkie finger in the direction, holding the yoghurt cup in her hand. I spotted the small black-white dog running around in the yard. I chuckle, turning back to Jaycee. "Anyways, I'm heading out. My friends are here."
"Tell your brother that, not me,"
"Jay!" Jaycee screeched, grabbing her phone off the counter, "I'm heading out! My friends are here!"
"Who?" I hear Julian's faint voice replying. "Is it a guy?"
Jaycee shakes her head, despite her brother not being able to see her, "no, it's Brooklyn."
"Alright, have fun!"
"You too!" She turns to me to give a little wink before exiting out of the kitchen and subconsciously, the living room as well. Julian enters the living room, with his stack of Patterson's forensics homework.
"Guess we have the house to ourselves, then," Julian chuckles, taking the unoccupied seat next to me.
Don't say that, idiot!
I slightly blush at my immortal thoughts as I convinced myself its due to Graham's casual influence of sexual innuendos. I begin to pull out my textbook for AP English with Ms Bennett and setting it next to Julian's things.
"Alright," I take a piece of paper off his stack, "how much have you gotten?"
"I've gotten through those four prompts, but the rest kinda blurred the lines for me. I forgot how to create the suspect list with a no-evidence murder case."
"A murder is usually committed by something they know almost 95% of the time. So, create the suspect list being the spouse which is a 7 out of 10 rating of being it, and then goes down to business partners and possible enemies the man could've made. You use that and begin interrogating, and use body languages to read off which person is saying." I explained in one breath; I inhale deeply. "I gave you that so now figure out the rest. All you really need to think is logically. Connections to the victim, then create the suspect list."
He nods, the mechanics in his brain slowly tying together the loose ends. "Okay... okay. I kinda get it. Wait, just give me a second."
He begins to start on the next prompt and writing down the suspect list before handing me the paper to go over. "You got it," I nod, hanging it back to him. He nods, beginning to go back to work as I shuffled down and begin on my own.
Despite being bilingual, I had some of the worst times in English. It was harder for me to read at a younger age, and with such bad progress, English is one of my hated subjects. Not only for the teacher, Ms Bennett who has a clear intersectional misogynist viewpoint, but the whole entire subject itself.
We mainly worked in silence; not suffocating, non-comfortable silence, but a silence where both of us enjoyed each other's presence. The only talking that would happen was Julian asking questions about certain portion of the worksheets and me asking Julian how to pronounce the word written in the textbook. By the end of the hour, we both finished our divided work.
"Miss Incomplete now?" I suggest, putting my finished homework back into my backpack. Julian nods in agreement.
"Do we need the notes this time?"
"Oh shit, I almost forgot," I shove my hand back into my backpack, returning with a slightly crumpled up notecard that I accidentally stole a while back. "Here."
"Oh, thanks,"
"Yeah, I figured out that clue; she's a athlete. She didn't exactly say which, speaking that she uses terms from different types of sports, but I've figured out that much."
"Wait, what?" Julian reviews over the words.
"Yeah; she kept mention balls, kick, hit, track and such. She's been vague about what type of sports she's in, but overall, she's in a sport so that should narrow down our search."
"Francena..." he begins to trail off, "that makes sense. Jesus, you got it!"
"It's no big deal, just go get the notes so we can use this hint and figure out the rest of the notes. Maybe if we target a specific person on an athletic team and reveal over all the notes could work."
"What if we use this hint instead?" Julian prompted, as I raised a questionable brow at him.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Like since we've already gone over and reviewed the hints, we got nothing, You've gotten one. Lets not use a lot of time finding absolutely nothing, and use this hint and decide what are we going to do about it."
"Alright," I clap my hands together as I begin to think of ideas on how to use this hint and find our copycat. "So, our objective is to find Miss Incomplete. If we're only shown that she plays a sport, what could the notecard determine next?"
"Ummm," Julian snaps his finger as he comes up with a solution, "the-the-the, umm. Wait." He paused for a moment, eyes closed in deep thought. "no, I got nothing."
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to cough up my own solution to this. I'm trying to picture it as a murder case; the most we got is a clue leftover and the handwriting. "Wait," I hold out a finger, opening my eyes. "What if we try the handwriting?"
It's the best shot right now.
"And how would we do that? Ask every single girl to write their names or something on a piece of paper?"
"Maybe," I shrug, the machine in my head whirring, "I mean, what else could we do? The best thing would to make them sign something, like a sign up—" I gasp, a light bulb appeared. I grabbed Julian's arm in sudden realisation. "We should make a sign up sheet!"
"For what?" Julian's eyes trailed down to my hand clamping on his arm, and I quickly found myself removing them off of him, wiping my hands on my pants. He chuckles.
"I don't know, I mean no one signs up for nothing," think. Think. "Everyone wants something."
Julian chuckles, "you know how in High School Musical they had to sign up for the musical? What if it was like a date? Would that work?" He laughs at himself, seemingly thinking that was such a stupid suggestion.
My eyes widen, "that's it!"
"What?"
"We make a sign up sheet for a date. The girls would sign up for the date and we could post it for at least a week to check for handwriting."
"Yeah, okay," his tone sarcastic, not very fond of the idea, "but who's the unlucky soul that will be posted as the date?"
"You."