When Did Your Heart Go Missing?

Fuck. Shit. Damn. God...

What the hell is going on?

Frank says I confuse him but he confuses me.

Don't think about him. He said not to.

Yeah, right.

After getting showered and crawling into Linda's clothes, I walked slowly down the stairs.

"Layla, sweetie!"

I smiled helplessly. She's always calling me "sweetie" and "honey".

"Hey, Linda," I said with a smile as I walked into the kitchen, seeing that there was some steaming hot chicken soup waiting for me on the table. And it's probably ninety degrees outside.

"Can you believe its ninety degrees outside?" Linda said to me, fanning herself with her hand.

Called that one.

"Yeah," I said, dipping the spoon that lay beside the bowl into the hot liquid. I sipped it and gave Linda a grin. She smiled and sat beside me.

"I need to ask you something," she said casually, yet more serious than I'd ever heard her. But I nodded anyway, slurping the soup slowly. "What happened with you and Frank in the bathroom last night?"

I choked. "What? No-nothing!"

Stuttering: bad.

"Mm-hmm," Linda said thoughtfully. "I heard you scream."

"No-nothing, really. He just...he scared me."

Stuttering: still bad.

"You know what? I trust you guys. I believe you."

I let out a sigh of relief and she gave me an odd look.

"I'm gonna go call a cab for you," she said, standing up and walking toward her phone.

"It's okay, I can walk," I reassured her. I pushed my plate away. Too. Damn. Hot.

"You are not walking all the way over there!"

I smiled.

She's like your mom. Or at least the type of mom you should have. And Frank's her son. You can't date your mom's son...

Except that she isn't your mom, so it's legal.

Those voices were getting on my nerves.

Linda gave me twenty bucks for the cab and gave me a hug good-bye when it arrived. I slid into it, rolled the window all the way down to feel the early summer breeze, and stared at the houses we passed along the way.

And I just couldn't help it. I closed my eyes and thought about Frank.

I felt ecstatic when Frank's tongue brushed mine. He was leaning into me so much, I had to put my elbows on the steps so that I wouldn't fall back...

"Miss?"

My face was in his hands. My hands were on his chest...

"Miss?"

It was perfect. Pure bliss. I felt something kissing Frank that I didn't feel kissing all those other idiots...

"Miss, is this the place?"

I opened my eyes, startled, and looked at the driver. The car had stopped and he was looking at me through the rearview mirror with an angry glare. I looked out the window at Kelsey's large house.

"Uh...yeah, yeah...this is it." I awkwardly thanked him, gave him the twenty bucks, and stepped out of the cab.

You were dreaming about kissing him...

There's a difference between dreams and memories...

There's such a thing as both...

I knocked on Kelsey's front door angrily. Much to my surprise, her maid answered.

"Hey, M," I told her with a small smile. (We call her M because her name is too hard to pronounce.) "How've you been?"

"Good," she said with a smile in her heavy French accent. She was the most normal person for a maid. She stepped aside to let me in. "Take it you're here to see-"

"Layla!"

M laughed and I smiled helplessly as Kelsey ran toward me. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. I rolled my eyes and looked passed her shoulders to see Sarah on the couch. She smiled and waved. I waved back. Kelsey pulled away from me and grabbed onto my shoulders, giving me a soft smile.

"You wanna talk about last night?" she asked.

"No," I stated simply. M took that as her cue to return to the kitchen.

"Okay. Well...do you want to talk about what happened last night?"

My eyebrows furrowed at her mischievous smile.

"Didn't you just ask me that?..."

"I meant with Frank."

Oh.

"They slept with each other!" Sarah said as Kelsey and I walked into the living room. I smirked and said,

"Yeah, we did."