And you wonder why, why I'm not there with you
I ain't answer my phone in so long
✂︎------------------------
THERE ARE A lot of places Isaia could've taken me. Such as the mall, the park, to a friend's house, or kicked me to the curb 4 blocks away. What I did not expect was for him to take me to his own house. It was actually Sonny's house but I found out along the way that Isaia had been staying with Sonny these past 2 years while his parents were expanding their business into North America.
And I would've objected to this if I didn't know the reason as to why he decided to take me to his place instead. It's majorly hard to reject someone's offer of going home with them when they say they need help baking a cake for Sonny's birthday and promised me the password to his HBO Max if I did actually assist.
I could buy HBO myself since it isn't a secret that I am far from poor. But I never have because I simply didn't care enough to spend my own money. But even with piles of designer clothing in my thousands dollar apartment that I live in alone at the age of 16, someone else paying for me seemed to make the idea of having an HBO 10x more appealing.
And all I had to do was make sure his dumbass didn't get eggshells in the cake and burn down the house. It was like babysitting a toddler when all they do is babble, touch things, and sleep.
"You don't have a cook or a maid? Or just google in general?" I questioned as we got out of the car, shutting the door behind me and beginning to follow him into the house. Sorry, I meant mansion. The place really did look more like a castle or Elon Musk's summer getaway than a normal home.
"And you don't have money to buy your own HBO?" He asked, tossing my question aside like he always does.
I shrugged. I should've known I wouldn't get a straight answer. "Fair point."
When Isaia opened the door that leads from the garage to the mudroom, the alarm went off, signaling that somehow no one was home. The inside was even nicer than the outside. It was so modern, yet so homey as well. It wasn't my first time inside Sonny and Isaia's house, flashback to the time I fell asleep in Isaia's bed while drunk out of my mind from a spiked drink in the beginning of the school year. But with all the furniture in place and the rooms not being dark or flooded with jumping bodies and colored lights, it really did look a lot nicer than just a regular frat boy's party.
"I got all the ingredients yesterday," Isaia said, shrugged on his coat and tossing it on the stool that was tucked into the Island. Turning to me, he held out his hand. After an awkward silence where he just stared at me with his hand out while I stared back, he rolled his eyes. "Your coat, Laura."
"Oh, right," I murmured, quickly looking away but giving him my jacket anyway that disappeared to some closet down the hallway. Walking around the island, I took a seat on one of the barstools waiting for him to re-enter the kitchen. "So, what kind of cake are you gonna make?"
"Uhm... a regular one?" He replied like I just asked the dumbest question the world's ever heard.
"Oh really?" I spat back, already annoyed. This man carried less brain cells than I did. "I didn't think of that. I thought you'd make one out of cow shit. But no, a regular one."
"A vanilla one, dumbass," He retorted, heading into the pantry. A walk-in pantry, that is.
"Is that Sonny's favorite flavor?" I asked, trying to make conversation. Not because I wanted to but because I couldn't seem to process the fact I was in his house only minutes after arguing with him, again.
"Nope, it's mine," Isaia came back out of the pantry holding different baking items in his hand. Flour, sugar, vanilla extract, whatever else needed to make a cake.
Raising an eyebrow, I glared at him. "You're making your favorite cake, for someone else's birthday?"
"Yes," He nodded, smirking and getting the milk and eggs from the fridge. "If he wanted his favorite cake he should just make it himself. Sonny should just be glad I'm doing this in the first place."
"You're such a humble, kind, considerate man," I sarcastically remarked. "You really care so much for other people. I love how you never make things about you."
"Yes, I do agree those are only some of my finest qualities," I could've called Isaia an asshole and he'd somehow twist it into a compliment. His ego was even bigger this his stupidity.
Isaia didn't even look like he was joking when he said that. Turning back around and going into the hallway again, only to return seconds later with two pieces of clothing in his hand. One of which he held out to me. "What's this?"
"An apron," He said, slipping his own Christmas themed apron on over his head and tying it back around his waist.
I hate to admit it, or think it, or even consider thinking it, but he looked somewhat cute. Almost like an innocent boy who just wants to bake a cake for his best friend. The only thing that suggested otherwise was the frown he wore like it was part of his uniform. Isaia either always looked pissed, confused, or like he was plotting his world dominance and all the many ways he'd take over by tossing our bodies in a pit and lighting us on fire with gasoline and then cooking smores over the flames.
"Need help tying yours?" He asked, barely looking at me as I fumbled with the strings.
"Obviously not," I spat. Help? Doesn't he know who I am? Laura Strathen does not need help. I refuse to get help, help is a sign of weakness. I would raid area 51 all by myself before accepting help from Isaia.
Said no one ever.
Because I very much did need help. And though it pained my soul to say it, literally I think I got heartburn for a second, I nodded grimly. "Yeah," I mumbled, crossing my arms and turning around. I don't know if I heard him laugh or insult me, but he said something as he tied the gingerbread man apron around my waist.
Looking at me for a couple of seconds, he crossed his arms. "Cute." Then he spun around, marched back over to the counter where all the ingredients were laid out, and looked at them confidentially. "Time to make Gordon Ramsy proud."
Did you know, that according to Isaia Wood's dictionary, that help = do all the work for me while I complain, call your baking absolute shit, and try to eat the vanilla extract.
Because that is exactly what happened. Instead of me helping him, I just did all the work. After he tried measuring one cup of flour, sneezed, and shook the flour in the cup everywhere, including on his face, he said he was done with baking and Gordan Ramsy can suck his dick.
Never knew that getting flour on his cheek was something that pissed Isaia off to the maximum.
And then he tried again, saying he wanted to crack an egg with one hand because he saw me doing it. Instead, Isaia broke the whole egg and the yolk spilled out onto the counter where the yellow circle part slipped off the edge of the counter and fell on his sock. Then he screamed, gagged, and then went to change his whole outfit leaving me to clean up. Just because his sock got wet.
But finally, the cake was in the oven and baking for the next hour.
"That was so hard," Isaia said, sighing and leaning against the counter.
I think I heard my jaw hitting the floor and the paramedics rushing over from around the block to reattach it just then. "You didn't do anything!"
"That's literally not event true and you know it," He snarled, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his dark gray sweatpants.
"Oh yeah, my mistake. You must be so exhausted after doing so much work! God, if I had to measure one whole cup of flour too I'd be fatigued!" I teased sarcastically. "And you still have flour on your face, somehow."
Isaia smirk confidentially, he's such an idiot. "The battle scars of a true baker."
"Shut up," I sighed, rolling my eyes. There was no getting through to him this time. Isaia was a lost cause.
Since he didn't help with literally anything else, I made him put away all the ingredients and wipe down the counter and floor so everything was clean again before we did anything else. The things you can receive from a boy if you just threaten to take the batteries out of his Xbox controller is amazing.
Once the kitchen was cleaned and the timer for 1 hour was set, Isaia and I put away our aprons and I followed him to his bedroom where he would reward me with the password to his HBO account. Wow, God really is good.
And even better, I get to pick a show to watch while we wait for the cake to bake. I've waited much too long to watch Euphoria, and today was the day when I'd binge the entire show with my untrusty sidekick by my side with ducktape over his mouth because he wouldn't stop complaining when I hit play.
"What even is this? Is this a sign your a growing drug addict, Laura? Should I stage an intervention?" He said, rambling on and on about every little thing the show talked about. It was only the first 5 minutes of the first episode too.
Isaia's room had a small L-shaped couch in front of the TV hanging all the wall, so we sat there as I basically drooled over Zendaya. "Will you just shut up and watch?"
"I am watching," He grumbled, crossing his arms. He most definitely was not watching.
I would know because every time I said something he'd go "uh-huh" and go back to looking at his phone or something random in the room. The second the first episode ended, Isaia yawned, stretching a bit and being way too overdramatic. "Finally it's over! What a great movie, sad that it had to end so soon."
"I-," Is he actually this dumb? "It's a series, Isaia."
Frowning he shrugged. "That's just an illusion. You should save the rest of the episodes for your own time."
Though I wanted to complain, I didn't because it would probably be more fun watching alone anyway. I wouldn't have to hear his stupid comments every 2 seconds. "Okay, so what do you want to do, then? Sit here in silence until the cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool down for another hour while we sit in silence some more?"
"Wow," He said, a weird expression on his face. "You read my mind."
"Isaia-."
"I'm joking," Snorting, he got up, walking over to the tv stand and opening a draw where I'm assuming all his Xbox games were. "I have an even better idea."
"If you're going to ask me to play something stupid like I'm-," And then he turned around. And then I saw what was in his hand. And then I think I came. Because there it was in all its glory. Minecraft, Xbox One edition. "Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes holy fuck YES!" I exclaimed, getting up excitedly and taking a controller he held out to me.
"Didn't think you'd actually want to play," He commented, smirking like usual.
"Why wouldn't I? I'll actually have you know I'm scientifically a God when it comes to Minecraft. Like notch part 2. Even herobrine was scared of me!"
Isaia rolled his eyes, but inserted the CD anyway and walked back over to sit next to me again. You know, I would've said that it was the cutest most romantic thing in the world. That we played together, and put our beds next to each other, and found dogs and named them with nametags.
Except that's very much far from what happened. So instead of faking it, I will give a brief overview of why I now hate Minecraft Xbox edition, all thanks to this dumbass.
It all started when we made the world, which I insisted on naming BEANS because let's be honest, that's actually the best name ever. We spawned on an island with two trees. And instead of getting supplies Isaia made a stone sword right away and kept repeatedly killing me until night came when I closed myself off in a hole with little to no things while he kept dying at the surface from 800 mobs.
And then on the second day, he finally let me get enough wood without killing me first, so I made a boat for us and we sailed far far away. Seriously, we went so far that by the time we found actual land with forests and stuff it was starting to get night again. But this time, we went into a cave we found instead of staying at the surface. Which was a terrible idea, because every time I tried mining iron or coal, Isaia would trail me like a little puppy and then pick up the ores. Which is why I ran away from him and hid in the mines until I got full iron and an iron sword. Where I then found him in a cave and killed him.
Which landed him back, you guessed it, back at the island thousands of blocks away.
I was living in paradise because while he had to figure out how to get to me with no wood or boat since we broke the only wood on the island, I stacked up.
By the time Isaia swam all the way back to me, I had a house, a small farm, and a mine going. And since he was very made that I killed him and it took him many Minecraft days to get back to my location, I allowed him to live in my house. Where he put his bed next to mine and then tried to set me on fire with flint and steel, claiming that the two beds were king-sized and for him only.
It kept going downhill until eventually, we made an agreement that we wouldn't kill each other anymore.
Which he broke by hitting me off the edge and into a ravine I was looking at. Then I got really mad and raged quit, and that basically wraps up the whole Minecraft experience.
"You're the dumbest person I know! We made an agreement, Isaia! A truce and you broke it!" I ranted on and on, pacing back and forth in front of him while Minecraft music played in the background. "What happened to trust? I trusted you and you killed me! I had my diamond pickaxe on me! Do you know how heartbreaking that is? I feel so betrayed! And to think I was going to let you share my enchantment table!"
Watching me dramatically rant to prove a point, was Isaia who sat calmly with the most joyful and amused expression I think I've ever seen him with.
Stepping closer I pointed a finger at him. "I had 42 levels."
"Sorry," He shrugged, clearly not even caring. "It was a misclick, honestly."
"You're such a liar," I exclaimed, laughing slightly. "You owe me now."
"Stop being such a drama queen," He snorted, swatting away my finger.
Rolling my eyes again, I walked over to grab my phone that was currently plugged into his charger while Isaia tried to find the way back to our house with my controller. Since my phone was on DND, I must not have noticed the 1 very long message I received from my Mother. Sliding open the message, I read it slowly in my head. And then I re-read 4 more times because I couldn't believe what I was reading.
Do you know how embarrassing it was tonight trying to explain why my own daughter wasn't at the dinner I prepared for her? I always knew you were a difficult child Laurene, which is why my Father and I presumed it was best if we gave you the apartment so you'd have more space and privacy. But it seems you're not even mature and responsible enough for that either. You are disgraceful. Tonight was the final straw, embarrassing me and your Father like that. Even after everything we've given you and you can't even show up for a single dinner?
And I noticed you weren't even at the apartment, too. So where are you, Laurene? Out getting drunk and hooking up with more men like the slut you are? I'm ashamed to call you my daughter. Don't bother trying to go back to the apartment tonight, as the legal owner of the apartment I told the workers that if you even tried getting back inside that they must immediately call for trespassing.
If you wanted to be away from home so much, don't bother coming back to us either. Not until you get your act together and prove you are our daughter. This is not the Laurene I know. As a child, it is your job to make your parents proud and you've done none of the sorts. Get your act together and then contact me. Maybe then you'll have a place to sleep. Until then you ungrateful brat, find somewhere else to stay.
Somewhere along the time, I spent reading that, I started crying. I wasn't sad, I was just so full of instant anger and frustration I didn't know how else to express it. I don't think I hated anyone as much as I hated that woman just then. Even calling her my Mother is a stretch. I never ever thought in my life she'd go as far as to kick me out and threaten to call the police if I tried going home.
I couldn't believe that what I was reading was actually real. My own mother, the woman in charge of loving me unconditionally, just called me a slut, a disgrace, an ungrateful brat, embarrassing, unmatured, unresponsible, and on top of it all kicked me out of my own house without giving me anything. Not even my toothbrush. All because I didn't go to a family dinner.
"Hey, Laura," Isaia said, holding my hands. He sounded underwater though like he was speaking through a submarine in hieroglyphics. "Laura, what's wrong? Are you okay? Why are you crying?"
I think my life ends here. This is the end of it, the end of me. She picked the worse possible day to do this, a Sunday when schools tomorrow. I don't have anything. I don't even have my school uniform. Or clean clothes or anything with me except a phone and a credit card that can't really buy a house in a day. I wasn't loud crying, the type of crying you do when everything inside you has shattered and you're mostly just screaming but also kind of crying. I just stood there, not fully processing what happened, as silent tears streaming down my cheeks.
Usually, I avoid crying. My makeups too fucking expensive to waste it on tears. But I was actually crying and even I didn't know how to feel about that.
"Laura," Isaia repeated, shaking me like I was in a coma and that would wake me up. "What's-."
"My Mom just kicked me out," I muttered glancing down at my phone again, re-reading the last few sentences. "And if I try going home or getting anything from my apartment she's going to call the cops for trespassing."
"Oh. Oh wow. Oh, what the fuck," Isaia murmured, even him at lost for words. "Uhm, we can figure this out."
We? Actually, his choice of words doesn't even matter right now. I think the only reason I was still partly sane at the moment was because the stupid Minecraft music was calming every nerve that wanted to rip the TV from the wall.
"Holy shit, I'm actually homeless."
Song Of The Chapter: phone numbers - dominic fike
uhhh plOT twist. But don't worry I have everything perfectly planned out 😌
Kind of.
AnyWHO this is another long chapter cuz I like cliffhangers and I like Laura and Isaia and I like Minecraft. *insert cowboy emoji*
I kind of really deeply fiercely greatly hate Laura's mom so it pains me to write her character but her mom is also like CEO of adding fuel to the fire soo o oo o
yEAH
qotd: whats your zodiac sign?
Much Love - Kujiis