Forever And Never

"There's good, Nicolette. I'll be able to see you perfectly from there," He said into my ear as I brushed my fingers across an empty booth next to the windows. Glad that he was content with the seat I picked, I set my drink —the only thing I'd chosen to order— down and sat myself. Ramsey had found a comfortable space on the roof of the building to the right of the restaurant and had set up his things in a place where he could keep an eye on me through the big open windows of the fast food place while I ordered my drink.
"It looks like were all set," Ramsey announced, concluding that the process of settling both me in a place I was comfortable with and him in a place where he could see me had been a success. I smiled, and when his voice asked, "You have your phone ready, right?" I reached in the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the new phone, placing it on the counter for him to see. "Alright... I'm starting the timer."
The first twenty minutes of my outing went as planned, much to the satisfaction of Ramsey who, from where ever he sat on the roof of the building to my right, talking to me almost nonstop. I was hopelessly bored, and if he was unable to see it on my face from where he was perched, he may have noticed by how little response came from my side of the wire. I was losing hope that this outing would become anything, and was convinced that absolutely nothing would happen for the remaining time until the door opened and I heard a set of voices I couldn't help but recognize, making my eyes dart to the door just in time to see Ali and Lori step inside.
I gasped, not even realizing I had done so until Ramsey questioned, "What? Is something wrong?" And I had to grab my phone from the table and quickly respond that everything was fine and that I child had fallen and made everyone jump with the noise they caused. Ramsey accepted my excuse, and by the time I was laying my phone back on the table before me Ali and Lori had already spotted me and where making their way over to my table, the surprise on their faces clear from where I sat.
"Nicolette?!" Lori questioned loudly once they were mere feet away from me, her eyes wide and her mouth agape as she and Ali held onto each others arms, both scared that it wasn't me and that a stranger had gotten their hopes up. I looked up, though I still had my sunglasses on, and after a few seconds of panic, answered: "Hey, how are you?" for lack of something better suited for a situation like this.
"Nicolette, what are you doing?" I heard Ramsey question as soon as my words left my mouth. I tried to ignore him as best as I would and continue to talk to them as they took a seat across from me in the both, but his voice in my ear was much too distracting and I knew he would get angry if I continued to ignore him and could come up and force me to leave my best friends before we'd hardly even started to talk.
I looked at my phone, and said "I'd better take this call," Before standing up quickly and walking a few feet away to prevent them from hearing me. "Hello?" I grumbled angrily, immediately hearing Ramsey ask once more why I was talking to Ali and Lori. "They're my best friends," I whispered knowing he could hear perfectly well while they would have trouble understanding. "I haven't seen them in eight months."
"I thought we discussed not talking to anyone just yet. We were going to work on it later, remember?" I was silent for a minute, trying to decide whether or not to get mad at him or not. Maybe later, when my time outside was up for now and being mad at him wouldn't interfere with seeing my friends again.
"I know we said later, but why wait if the opportunity comes early? And, I'll feel more comfortable making contact if it's with someone I actually know. It'll make it easier if I have my best friends first, not some random people." I sighed, convincing myself to stop talking before I completely talked myself out of ever being let outside again.
Ramsey was quiet, debating in his mind what he wanted to for a long time while I stood with my back facing the table and my phone to my ear. Finally, he sighed quietly before surrendering, "Fine... Just be careful. Don't tell them anything. And if you want to leave early, just text or call and I'll be there. "I know, I know," I replied as he listed off countless things we had already discussed countless times until finally I said bye and pulled the phone from my ear.
"Okay I'm back," I announced once I had reached the booth I'd been sitting at and had taken my place back in my original seat across from them. I smiled at them, adjusting my sunglasses and slipping my phone into the pocket of my jeans.
"Who was that?" Lori asked, quickly followed by Ali questioning, "Why do you have a different phone?" I stammered as I tried to correctly remember the many lies me and Ramsey had come up with, even though I hadn't planned on telling them so soon. "Uh, that was just a friend of mine... And I broke my old phone, so I had to get a new one." I mentally congratulated myself for being able to respond quickly enough to prevent them from looking at me suspiciously.
The pair of girls nodded and accepted my excuses without question and there was a small silence between us before Lori turned to me and leaned forward, then whispered, "So... What happened?" I knew it had to be the burning question on their minds, and they had been waiting months for and explanation as to why I had disappeared to suddenly.
"Uh..." was my first response, followed by an awkward feeling coming over me as I looked down at the table between me and them trying to gather all the information in my head so that when I finally did tell them it wouldn't look like I was lying. "Well... It's a little complicated," I looked up at them, and seeing them waiting patiently for my answer, I continued: "Um... When August and I were on our one month anniversary date... We had a really bad fight, and he ended up leaving and going to New York."
"New York?!" Ali repeated loudly, then noticing she's interrupted and murmured a sorry then remained silent for me to continue explaining my story. I looked back down at the table, having to lie to them making me want to disappear from the situation and just go back to the apartment and try going outside later. Ramsey had specifically told me that if I wanted to leave I could, but I couldn't back out now that I was finally talking to my friends again and was just now beginning to feel like I was a part of the world. I couldn't recoil now, especially now that Ramsey had so much confidence in me.
"Uh... So after he left I followed him to New York to apologize and make up... And once we were both there, we couldn't pull enough money together to return so we just lived with relatives of his who lived there, and went to school and everything while we gathered money to come back in the summer." My eyes remained cast down at the table, not wanting to see their expressions when they caught on that, according to my story, I had been gone all this time because of a boy.
"Nicolette," Lori groaned finally, a pained expression on her face that made me feel terrible when I looked up at her. "That's the stupidest decision you've ever made," She continued, her and Ali both looking sympathetically at me.
"He's only a boy, it wasn't worth it to throw away all that time for him," Ali chided as she ran a hand through her blonde which had grown so much since I'd last seen her and now fell two or so more inches down her back. "Where is he now, anyways?" Lori asked, connecting that I should probably be with him in New York right now if I'd fought so hard to stay with him.
"...We broke up about two weeks ago. I just arrived here from New York..." I felt such shame as I murmured my response, knowing their eyes were burning into me and they were ready to lecture me like parents. Though what they were telling me was supposed to apply to only the lies I was telling them, they made good advice for what was really going on.
At the discovery that, as far as they were concerned, I'd spend so much time to make my relationship with with August for months only to have it end abruptly in failure, both Ali and Lori groaned and covered their faces. "That really sucks," Ali commented, in the way that a mother would saying with anger and sadness in her voice. Lori agreed with a tired nod as she put her elbow on the table between us and rested her head in her hand, looking up at me as I spoke.
"After it ended, I figured I should just come home where I belong. I've already found an apartment and have started moving in." I smiled at them, and they returned it as I heard Ramsey murmur 'Good job' at what I had told them. I looked out of the window and nodded slightly, hoping he saw it.
"So does that mean your coming back to school in the fall?" Lori asked, perking up with excitement at the thought that her best friend would be returning finally. The question caught me off guard, as I had been distracted with nodding in Ramsey's direction, and as I awkwardly asked her to repeat herself, my hand flew to my right ear where the earpiece rested and my fingers brushed over it roughly causing it to fall from my ear and be lost somewhere in my hair.
I knew immediately that there was no smooth way to get the small piece of plastic back where it belonged without drawing attention to the fact that it was on me at all. It would have to stay where it was for the remainder of my time if I didn't want Ali and Lori to find out that I had been wearing a wire the entire time I was talking to them. I felt panic as I looked out the window in the direction of where I thought Ramsey was, wondering what he would do when he realized what had happened.
"So? Are you going to enroll?" Ali asked impatiently after I had failed to reply to Lori's question even after she'd repeated it. I stuttered something, trying to recover from the awkwardness of my earpiece falling out. Despite the fact that I was now without Ramsey's voice in my ear, I realized that it gave me the advantage to talk me freely with Ali and Lori.
"I don't know..." I answered truthfully, "I haven't even thought about going back to school yet." I could already predict that Ramsey wouldn't want me to go, that it was too soon for me to be out in the world everything surrounded by so many people.
"You should definitely come back to school, so we could spend our senior year together." Ali was excited now too, and she smiled at me as I considered the idea of returning to high school. When I had been human, I'd wanted to graduate because I'd promised my mom I would. If I had the chance to accomplish at least that one goal from my human life, then I wanted to.
As I pondered the idea more, I heard my phone ring in my pocket and I quickly grabbed it and answered it to hear Ramsey say, "It's time to leave, I'll be there in a minute," and hang up before I could reply. I pulled my phone from my ear and looked at it before letting my eyes return to my best friends. "I still don't know..." I said, looking at them sadly because I was unable to make such a simple choice on my own without having to check with Ramsey to see if it was alright.
"Well you should do it. You won't be seventeen forever." Lori replied, and the sad truth that I technically would be seventeen forever kept me from smiling when Ali spoke up after her saying, "Registration is on August 27th, just in case you want to do it." I nodded at them, and out of the corner of my eye saw Ramsey's black car enter the parking lot.
"I've got to go, but I'll talk to you later," I said as I stood up quickly from the booth, wanting to avoid a rough departure as much as possible. The two of them smiled at me sadly, but said their goodbyes and waved as I spoke my last farewells before turning towards the door and walking through it and into the parking lot.
"She's out of our lives again," Ali stated once they suspected I couldn't hear them, and I fought the urge to turn around and look back at them as I climbed into the passengers seat of the car and was gone in a matter of seconds.