Rollercoaster Ride

The next following days, I was ignoring John. He had been trying to talk to me but I just responded with short lines to the lines that were necessary to be spoken. Other than that, I just ignored him.

“What’s up with you and John lately?” Pat asked as we were entering the Chemistry lab.

I just shrugged.

“And you seem to be more—“

“Absent-minded. I get that a lot lately,” I rolled my eyes as we took our seats.

“Actually, I was about to say crankier, but that one works too.”

I sighed and placed my head on my palm.

“Mind telling me what’s going on?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay.”

The class grew silent as the teacher, Mr. Fredericksen entered.

A few seconds later, Pat poked my arm. I turned to look at him.

“Mind telling me what’s going on?” he whispered.

“No.” I turned my head to the whiteboard in front of the class.

“Come ooon,” he whined.

“No, Pat.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Daphneee—“

I smacked him with my notebook.

“Ow.”

“Now shut up,” I whispered.

“Meanie.” I could feel him pouting next to me.

He should try to learn to be a bit mature, right now.

- - -

A soft knock was heard from my half-opened door. I replied with a ‘come in’, and the person popped their head inside. My eyes darted off from the screen of my laptop to her.

“Am I interrupting something?” Morgan asked.

“Nope.”

She came in and seated herself on my bed. Where else? I didn’t have a desk or a chair in my room.

“I heard about you and John.”

Ugh, what is it with people minding about me and John?! It’s our business, get the hell over it.

“Apparently, Daphne, we can’t get over it.” Eh, I spoke my mind without realizing… “Because we all know that you two are best friends and suddenly you guys are… icy and all. And John told me to talk to you.”

Fuck that kid.

“Are you jealous of me, Daph?”

“What—“

She smiled widely. “You are!”

“What makes you think of that?!”

“Because I’m John’s so-called first love,” she grinned.

I rolled my eyes, although I knew she was right. She was John’s first love, although he was too young to feel that.

“But that’s just inside your head. You like John and you know John used to like me and he talked about me most of the time and yada yada yada.”

“…How do you know about this stuff?”

“He told me. Well he didn’t say you like him but your feelings are so just so obvious, and so does his. But I failed at making him admitting he likes you,” she sighed.

“Wait – what?”

“He likes you.”

“Say that again?”

“John Cornelius O’Callaghan likes you. Do I have to repeat it again?”

“Thanks for the joke.”

“No, seriously, he likes you! It’s so obvious.”

“If he does like me, then why is he spending less time with me since you came back?”

“We’re working on the promise we made when we were kids.”

“What promise?”

She hesitated. “Secret.” And she winked. “And don’t shoo me away like you did to John.”

I remained silent.

She stared at me for a while. “Well, there are two promises we made.”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“Which are…?” I asked.

She hesitated again. “To marry each other when we’re in our 20s,” she said before laughing. My jaw dropped.

“Wha—“

“It’s just a children’s promise, Daphne!” she said between her laughter. “When John and I were talking about this, we were laughing our asses off. We even forgot that promise still exists.”

I raised my eyebrows. I hated the fact that I couldn’t raise one of my eyebrows and Kennedy always made fun of me about it.

“Then what’s the other promise?” I asked.

“It’s a secret.” She winked again. “Anyway, I came here only to straight things up that there’s nothing between me and him. I did like him back then and he did too, but it was ages ago. Now we both moved on, not even caring about a stupid marriage promise,” she giggled, which automatically made me smile.

Then her phone rang. She shoved her hand into the pocket of her black skinnies and took out her phone, read the caller ID, and answered the call.

“Yo,” she said. “…Yeah, I’m about to go back home actually. …I’m at Daphne’s. …Alright.” She handed out the phone to me. “John wants to talk to you.”

I stared at the object for a while. “I don’t feel like talking to you,” I said, loud enough so that he would hear me.

Morgan raised her eyebrows at me before holding the phone back next to her ear.

“She’s just stubborn, you know that,” she laughed into the phone. “…I know. …What? Now? …Ugh, alright. See you later.” And with that, she ended the call. “I gotta go.”

I nodded. “See you around.”

“Of course,” she grinned before standing up and going out from my bedroom. I heard a faint conversation of her and Kennedy.

“So?” Kennedy asked.

“She listened.”

“I’m glad.”

“I know, right? Now I’mma go home, John’s being a prick telling me to go home ‘cause he wants to finish our promise immediately.”

“Telling someone to go home doesn’t mean a prick.”

“I know, I just like using the word ‘prick’. It’s funny.”

“You’re weird, Morgan.”

“Shut up.” They both laughed.

“Let me walk you to the door.”

And then I heard their footsteps walking away. I sighed, dropping my back against my bed and watched the ceiling as if there was a ceiling cat, crawling on it like a Spiderman while thinking about what Morgan had told me.