Previously On Triplets Apart:
Jada gives Mariyah a glamorous new look, boosting her confidence a little for the party. Jada and Mariyah meets the rest of the gang where Shane apologizes in the flesh. Mariyah and one of the gang member named Cody engaged in a drunk steamy first kiss.
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A/N- I put together some visuals of the gang. You'll see them further down in this chapter and I know you're gonna love them. I do not know any of the persons I use in this story, I researched photos of the persons that will best match the descriptions in my head. If you happen to know any of them, please let me know so I can find these beautiful people and share their names with you and also give them credit, especially Jada! Enjoy!
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Mariyah and I are seated in the library, getting some homework done. I rather to go home and kick it than to go home and still have to be thinking about stupid school, that's just too much toxicity for me. So whenever we get homework at the end of the week, I complete it right on the spot.
I tap my pen on the table as I look at Mariyah, with a smirk of my own. Finally she hesitantly looks up at me after pretending she doesn't know I'm watching her.
"What?!" She hisses.
"You?" I say and she ignores me, back to her book.
I chuckle.
"Meredith.. mad.".. Zinh, her name is Mariyah, and when since do you speak without being spoken to first?
"You barely said a word to me all morning. Wassup?" I ask, still smirking knowingly.
"I made a fool of myself." She drops her pen and scoots down in her chair.
"We're college freshmans. We all make fools of ourselves." I push my grey iMac aside.
"My head still hurts. Wait, why is my head hurting?"
"Uhm.. It's called a hangover? That headache you get when you've been swigging booze the previous night."
"Then how are you so fresh? You were drinking too."
"I have my ways." She ignores me. "So.. Cody.." I trail off.
"Ugh," She groans loudly, dropping her head backwards. I conceal my laughter from her shame. "That wasn't supposed to happen. How could I have been so careless?"
"One day you'll look back and realize that this is just college, it's what we do. After all this work in classes, we go crazy and make stupid decisions. We're all idiots if you should ask me. At the end of the day, it's all fun and we laugh at it. But soon, you'll understand. It's so much you still need to adapt to." I say between laughs, amused at her reaction, thinking she can actually be perfect especially in college.
"Yeah." She agrees. She lifts her head back up and folds her arms.
I chose a seat at the side of the library. My back is to the wall so I have visual of the entire room, while M's back is turned to the room.
I spot the gang coming inside.
"Speaking of Cody.." I trail off mockingly as she's oblivious that he's now here. I scoot down in my chair, grabbing my iMac and placing it back in front of me, hiding behind it jokingly. Mariyah scoffs in frustration realizing that he might be behind her.
Tariq, Shane, Mario, Cody, Amra, Emma, Lexa and Tory walks towards us upon spotting us.
Shane is tall and built.. just like Tariq with dark skin, full lips and quite cute.
Mario is light skinned with chiseled jaw lines, handsome, cute with faded curly hair.
Cody is a little darker than Mario. He's really tall, about 6"4. He has nice faded hair with twists at the top. Beautiful brown eyes and very good looking.
Amra, Tariq's sister.. she is tall just like her brother with legs up to her hips, full lips and mixed, shoulder length curly hair, she's super cute and looks like him.
Emma is white, beautiful and skinny, but smoking hot with blonde hair.
Lexa is about my height which is 5"6, melanin princess, very beautiful, and sexy.
And Tory is a Latina, short, she's gorgeous with long black hair and possesses hypnotizing brown eyes.
Cody is funny, Mario is cool and humble but fun. Tariq and Shane are kind of trouble makers but are actually really nice little demons. Amra is sweet but in an intimidating way. Emma doesn't talk much, she reminds me of myself, she looks mean too. Lexa is the smart, responsible one as Tory is the slut.
Yes I could already establish all of this without actual conversations. But overall they all seem to be a cute set of people.
"Hey!" Tariq's voice makes the boring library seems like a lovelier, more cheerful place in my mind.
They all greet us, grabbing their seats. But instead of sitting like decent, mentally stable human beings, the boys straddle the chairs.
Why are boys so weird?
"How's it going?" Cody asks Mariyah.
"Good?" She forces a smile, her response coming off as a question instead. I chuckle silently at their awkward stupidity.
"So we were thinking, maybe we could go to the games on Sunday? It's gonna be epic!" Tory suggests, running her nails through her hair and Mariyah's relief of someone changing the subject doesn't goes unnoticed by me.
"Yeah the Lakers are playing, you know what that means, celebrities and shit so you know we have to get good seats." Cody tells us.
"Celebrities?" Lexa asks.
"Yeah, us." Cody grins playfully, earning small laughter from the rest.
"You think Rihanna will be there?" Amra smiles. Making it clear that she loves the superstar.
"Fuck yeah. I know you got the hots for her." Shane teases Amra, wiggling his brows at her, Mario laughs.
"Shut the fuck up, Shane." Amra punches at him but he grabs her fist before it connects with his chest.
"I bet she'd wanna be Rihanna's rude boy for a night." Cody nudges Shane with an elbow, both of them laughing.
"Does she uh.. does she gives you wild thoughts too, Amra?" Lexa surprisingly adds to the foolishness. She's always the quiet one, oh, so she got joke too?
"Wild wild wild.." Cody sings Rihanna's song playfully.
"Wild wild wild thoughts. Wild wild wild. When I'm with you all I get is wild thoughts!" They all sing except Amra and I, she rolls her eyes still grinning and I'm silently laughing in amusement.
"Okay gang, so the game?" Tory chirps.
I nod in agreement. Mariyah nods reluctantly, holding a sheepish smile as she eyes me in question, I shot her a discreet assuring wink.
"What the hell type of library has no WiFi? I need to keep up on Instagram." Amra frowns at her phone.
"It has WiFi, it's just locked." I say.
"How do they expect us to work without internet?" Emma adds.
"How do they expect you to work without internet." I correct.
"What do you mean?" Tariq asks.
"I'm connected."
"How?" Amra's brows knits.
"I have my ways." I smirk.
"You mean you hacked this shit?" Shane seems to be actually smart after all.
"I have my ways." I repeat with a grin as Tariq looks at me with a smile and shakes his head. He does that too.
"Anyways.. was last night crazy or what?" Cody adds and they all start to engage in small talk. I'm normally the reserved one so I stay silent. Mariyah rolls her eyes at Cody mentioning last night.
"Hey... you're thee Mariyah. The president's daughter." Tariq eyes Mariyah in discovery.
Mariyah smiles and shrugs innocently. "In the flesh."
"Oh.. my God." Tory says amused and the others gradually follow suit.
"Yeah. I remember you now. My dad works closely with your mom. He used to bring me by your crib and try to have us communicate but you never really did and for the love of Neptune I just couldn't understand why." Tariq says to Mariyah, pointing an index of realization at her.
"Really? That was you too? I was telling Jada something about that the other day. Mom always tries to set up her little play dates for me with her rich friends kids." Mariyah tells them and they chuckle.
"So aren't you supposed to be surrounded by the secret service and shit? Or homeschooled rather?" Lexa asks.
"Apart from the school's extreme security system, a few of my men from the secret service 'patrol' around the school for extra protection for me. Not sure if you've seen any of them, it's like only 9. After pleading to my parents that I want a chance of at least 5% of a normal teenage life, they rounded down their intense secret service team following me around to only 9 men. And instead of being a few inches away from me at all times while I'm at school and making everything still stifling, they settled on staying outside and around the school's compound."
"That's the secret service? Damn, I knew there was just something untouchable about their appearances and how different they looked from the other securities." Shane adds.
I noticed them too.
"Yeah. They have every emergency unit at their finger tips and any sign of something being wrong with me, they're ready to move. I've been homeschooled all my life and it was my decision to go to a physical college. My parents were skeptic about the decision but unlike my dad, my mom was still excited for me to go out there, make new friends and explore. And having so many security around me isn't gonna help with making that happen. But I am still the President's kid so whether I like it or not, some security has to be on standby even if they're not visible to me at all times but I can work with that."
"That's crazy." Cody deadpans, mentally reviewing what Mariyah just explained.
"So you don't really have any friends or siblings. Must be lame." Tory remarks and Mariyah looks to me in slight discomfort by Tory's statement.
"So if all of you came to this school all along, where were you when I fought Tariq?" I ask Amra. I have no interest to know this, I only want to take the attention off Mariyah.
"I was in class at the time." She says. "Anyways, we're gonna go shopping, you guys wanna roll with us?"
"I'm going straight home. But I think Mariyah wouldn't want to miss out on this opportunity." I say in reference to her choice of clothes. I giggle as Mariyah rolls her eyes at me, picking up on what I mean.
"Can you guys wait for us in the cars?" She asks them.
They all stride out the library, chatting among themselves without rearranging the chairs back to how they were before. M and I gather our things together. It's weekend and we're going home to see our families, but that's mainly the few who resides in the same state where the school is.
"Come shopping with us."
"Nah.. I'm not in the mood for a mall right now." I really just want to go home.
"But I need you there. I'm not going alone with them. Please, Curly? Pleaasseeee?"
You're not going alone with them or you're not going alone because Cody is there?
"Why the hell are you calling me that?" I wave her off to dismiss that thought. "Alright. But we're dipping in an hour or so." she squeals and hugs me, my hands remain at my sides.
Doing what spoiled kids entitled to do, I select most of Mariyah's clothes for her, discovering that she doesn't even knows how to dress down or look more like a normal college kid.
After leaving the mall I get back in my car and drive home. It is about an hour and a half away. I get inside my house but it seems empty.
"Hellooo? Is anyone home? Mom? Dadyyy?" I shout but no response. The house is quiet, eliciting echoes, which is music to my ears.
The landline rings.. just when I thought I was in peace and tranquility.
"Yes." I answer in my infamous rested tone.
"Hi, is this the White's residents?" Asks a female voice on the other line.
"Who is this?" I become hesitant to reveal our identity just like that.
"I'm calling from Townhall Hospital. It's about Paige White. Is she there?" She asks, my curiosity sparks. I begin to worry.
"Not at the moment. What is this about?"
"Who am I speaking with?"
"This is Jada. Jada White, Paige's sister." Stating my full name in hopes that whoever it is will see that I'm indeed apart of this family which makes me worthy of knowing whatever information this is.
"Her sister? Oh." Its as if she didn't know Paige had a sister. "This is Dr. Wilson, I'm calling to give you guys some good news.. I just wanted to let you guys know so we can start preparing he for the transplant." Her voice laced with warmth as if she actually cares unlike other doctors, but I get confused.
"Match? Match for what?" My brows knit in curiosity.
"Her.. her kidney. Paige is on file to do a kidney transplant? None of her family except her mom matched, but she's hell bent that she won't accept a kidney from any of her loved ones. However, the good news is that we found a match for her today so you guys won't have to worry about that." She pauses, maybe waiting for a response but resumes when she realizes that I have no intention of saying anything. "Uuhh.. Someone passed away last night and the family of the deceased granted us permission to remove her kidney and save Paige's life with it."
Save Paige's life?
I stay silent as I try to process what has been said to me just now. Wait, Paige needed a kidney and no one told me? Why wasn't I aware of this? My sister was suffering from some kidney disease and no one felt the need to tell me?
Oh.
"Miss White, are you still there?" Dr. Wilson asks.
I clear my throat, "uhh.. Yeah." I say softly, snapping out of my trance.
"But I'm looking through her medical reports right now and I'm not seeing any sign of you being tested to see if you'd be a match. Why didn't you get tested? Because Paige wouldn't.."
With a heavy hand, I hang the phone up slowly.
"Because I didn't know." I whisper silently to myself.
Why on earth would my family keep a secret like this from me? Why would my sister need a whole kidney to save her life but my family chose to keep it a secret from me?
***
Oh wow.
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Ily.