Adora.

One week…

It’s been a week since I last saw Nicola. Needless to say I’ve been checking my phone quite a few times to see if he had tried to contact me…

I was currently at school, sitting at the back of the class, on the left side, next to the window. Philosophy. I rolled my eyes as the teacher started to tell us about Platon and let my mind wander, far away from here, somewhere where I shouldn’t have to listen to two of my friends talking about the newest hamburgers at Mc Donald’s…
I’m serious, that’s their main conversation: food.
And they actually wonder why I don’t pay attention to their conversation?
Last time, I was talking with one of my friends about Avenged Sevenfold, and they asked us their real names. I was happy they were interested, so it was with a big smile that I started listing their names: Matt, Johnny, Jimmy, Zacky and Brian.
They laughed. They actually laughed those bitches. They were making fun of their names.
“Hahaha! Brian sounds like Brandon, it’s SO American!” one of them said.
Well no shit Sherlock! Brian is American you scumbag. And do you think yours is better? Fuck you!
Sorry, I got carried away but sometimes I just want to murder them… Especially that one time when they said I was a groupie, like the Tokyo Hotel’s ones, except it was Green Day. And that Billie Joe wasn’t so great or whatever stupid shit they say…
I thought I was going to make them choke on their own stupidity. Yes, I can get pretty violent sometimes just as much as they can be stupid… Which means a lot.

I rubbed my forehead tiredly and glanced at my cell phone: 6pm. I sighed in relief, only 5 more minutes to go and then, the day is over. I hate Thursday.

“Hey Adeline, what are you going to do tonight?” asked Katie, with a smile, a mocking one, as usual.

“Oh you know, the usual. Sleeping in my coffin until midnight and then I’m going to bit some necks…” I said, rolling my eyes and jumping off my sit as the teacher put the chalk down. That was the signal to let us know that the lesson was over.

I threw my stuff in my bag, quickly zipped it up and ran out of the room, not even bothering to explain to Katie that I was joking with the vampire part, I’m sure she’ll get it one day… or another.
If she really doesn’t get it, I’ll send her a text message…

I ran down the stairs and into the corridor, trying to remember where my locker was. I grabbed the key, unlock the lock and grabbed my bag. I made sure to put the lock in my pocket and not to put it back on the locker because I could be sure I wouldn’t find the next day.

That’s how it worked here… You don’t have your own locker, if you need one, you buy yourself a lock (if you don’t already have one) and you choose an empty locker in the hallway. Then at the end of the day, you take your stuff and lock back. You can’t let it on the locker because we are like 2 000 students here and there’s only like 700 lockers? Maybe less… So yeah…

I took my MP3 from my pocket, put my earphones in my ears and blasted ‘Second Heartbeat’ as I walked through the corridor, into the hall, out of the building, down the few stairs, into the rain, up a few stairs and through the glass door, in the other building and then finally out of this hell.

I almost tripped on my feet as I hurriedly crossed the road and caught the bus just in time. I got in and waited until the next stop before getting out. Yes, I was lazy, but bear with me, it was fucking raining… I crossed the busy street and slowly walked down the road, until I reached Stacey’s building. I opened the door and walked up to the 3rd floor, before shutting off my MP3 player and putting it back in my pocket. Then, I knocked on the door, and opened it.

“I’m here!” I yelled through the apartment, as I dropped my bags in the hall and kicked off my shoes.

Stacey appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, a box in her hands, sweat dripping on her forehead.

“Need help with packing?” I asked her, as I took off my hoodie and dropped it on my bag.

“No, I’m done for today, but thanks.” Replied Stacey, dropping the box next to several others, and wiping her hands on her jeans.

“So, when are you supposed to move in?” I asked, following her into her small living room/kitchen.

“At the end of the month, which is in two weeks…” she replied, heading towards the kitchen and taking two cokes out of her small fridge.

“Alright, that’s cool…” I said nodding, as we both sat on the couch, which will become my bed for the night.

It had become like a tradition for us since I met her. Every Thursday night, I’ll come to her apartment after school, and we would hang out together, watch movies and stuff. I’d sleep on her couch and then the next morning, I was back at school. That why I had two bags that day.
But since I reached the legal drinking age, we’ve been going to that Irish pub…

“But don’t worry! I reminded Dan about you and our ‘tradition’, and he said there’s no problem. You’ll still be able to pass out on the couch every Thursday…” explained Stacey, taking a sip from her can.

“Thank God!” I said, smiling and sighing in relief. Stacey was my best friend, even though she was two years older than I was. Pierre and Thomas were one year and a half older than me, making me the youngest in our group of friends.

“So, got any news from Nicola?” asked Stacey, a playful smile on her lips. I blushed and elbowed her.

“No, nothing…” I mumbled, focusing on my coke.

“Ah, don’t worry! Maybe you’ll see him again tonight!” she said, an encouraging smile on her face. I shrugged, and gulped down the rest of my can.
“I’m gonna take a shower and start getting ready, we are supposed to meet the guys at Mc Donald’s…” Stacey explained, getting up from the couch. She took my empty can and gave me the TV remote instead.

I thanked her and made myself comfortable on the couch, and started flickering through the channels, hoping to find something that would be worth watching it…

**

“So, any news from…” started Pierre but Stacey put her hand over his mouth.

“None.” I mumbled, before drinking the rest of my beer. Yes, I was drinking that night. I had spent the last hour watching every single person that had entered the bar, hoping to see him. But I had no luck so far. IT was getting on my nerves… Not really the fact that he wasn’t here, it was more because I couldn’t think of anything else and it was bugging me. I had seen him only one time, sure he asked for my number, but it’s been a week and he still hasn’t call. I angrily took my phone out of my pocket and looked through the numbers I had registered.

I went to Nicola’s number, I was about to delete it, I just had to press okay when my screen went black and it started vibrating, showing Nicola’s number as an incoming call.

My heart skipped a beat, my head snapped to Stacey, showing her my ringing phone and she squealed, catching Pierre and Thomas’ attention.

“What are you waiting for?” she urged, pushing me out of my seat, towards the door. I sighed, hurried out of the bar and accepted the call. I pressed the phone to my ear, covering my other ear with my free hand, trying to block the sound of cheering and laughing coming from the drunken students.

“Allo?” I asked into the phone, waiting to hear his voice.

“Adeline? It’s Nicola.” He said in the phone.

“Oh, hey Nicola!” I replied, trying to sound surprised and not completely excited. “How are you?” I asked, walking further away from the bar, and closer to the water.

“I’ve been okay, kinda tired because I had a lot of work, that’s why I didn’t cal you before… I’m sorry” he apologized. As soon as his words hit my ears, I smiled, glad he was thinking about calling me earlier but couldn’t do so because of his job. “And you, how are you?” he asked.

“I’ve been okay I guess, hanging with friends at the Irish bar…” I explained.

“I’m sorry I’m not here now…” he said, sounding sincere.

I was half expecting for the conversation to die right here, because I wasn’t the one to start a conversation and always had trouble keeping it going, I was more of a listener than a talker… Except for certain subject or with certain persons… But much to my surprise, it didn’t.

I found myself talking about ‘Edward’s scissors hands’, one of Nicola’s favorite movie because he asked me what were my favorite movies and I told him how much I appreciated Tim Burton’s work… which lead to me talking about ‘Edward’ from Twilight, because he mentioned the name, and since he was completely unobvious to the Twilight saga, I explained the books to him, saying that the film had yet to be released… And we started talking about our favorite books. Turns out he likes J.D Salinger’s work too.

Time seems to have stopped as I was sitting on that bench, talking on the phone Nicola. It was only when my phone started beeping me, letting me know that my battery was about to die that I had to say Good Bye to Nicola.

“what was that sound?” he asked.

“That was my phone; letting me know that my battery was about to die…” I informed him.

“Oh, I guess I should let you go back to your friends anyway… They must be worried. Bye Adeline, it was nice talking to you…” he said into the phone.

“It was nice talking to you too Nicola. Thanks for calling. Bye!” I whispered the last word into the phone before ending the call.

I stood a few more minutes on that bench, looking at the phone in my hands.
45 minutes.
That’s how long I stayed on the phone with Nicola. That was a record for me. The only person to ever call me for longer than 5 minutes is Stacey, one day we talked over the phone for 2 hours, but that’s because she had just read ‘Breaking Dawn’ and wanted to ask me what I thought of the book…

“Woah!” I whispered, pocketing my phone and getting up, slowly heading back inside the bar.

“What happened, did you get lost?” asked Thomas, worried, as Pierre was chatting up some girl and Stacey was telling Dan about her day.

“No, I was on the phone…” I said, running a hand through my hair.

“The whole time?” He asked, surprised. And I was surprised too… I never really liked talking on the phone and I always tried to cut short the conversations, except with a few selected persons.

I just nodded in answer, and grabbed Pierre’s drink, finishing his beer.