Chapter ten

PLEASE READ:

*Apparently people are having a hard time understanding the fact that when I put 'please read' it means, I don't know, that you should READ it. I'm getting so tired of comments of people saying, "You should really change it." Well it's two nights. Period. I changed it awhile back and I am not going through the passage again. I'm sorry if it's sounds like I am being a bitch, but seriously guys, take two seconds out of your life and read something that I actually say to READ.*

Thank you.

I started editing these chapters over a month ago and changed a lot of things. For example, it used to be six nights that Kelsey promised Julio instead of two. So please note that change* Same with Chemistry. I changed it to Physics during the editing process.*

I know it has been forever since I have uploaded, forgive me for that, but I plan on making it more regular since I was sick for awhile!

Anyways, this is it!

-Enjoy!

~ NickyMb <3

** Unedited **

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“I think I have a match.”

Those are the first words out of Kayla’s mouth as I drop into the seat opposite of her. Her smile is too big for her face and her eyes seem to also be a little too bright for the situation.

I don’t even bother answering her yet as I try to get situated. I drop the beanie that I wore here in the seat next to me and I run my fingers through my hair.

I knew Kayla wanted to meet me, and since she hasn’t been in our dorm room for three days, this was the only way I could see her.

Me and her both had no classes to attend. Which, I was pretty happy about.

Yesterday after agreeing to meet Julio for six nights, doing who knows what, I realized that I must be going crazy. Yep, that must be the answer.

The college life is just not for me.

But, what makes everything even worse? I still have those five blind dates to attend and Kayla seems pretty intent on following them through. I let out my breath and look at the waitress passing by our table in a black and white uniform.

People all around us enjoy the soup and salads, the only thing this place offers beside bread, and the light from the window seems to shine through the small place perfectly.

“Why did you chose the place Mia works to have this conversation?” I ask her and I watch as Kayla smiles and stacks one hand on top of the other, coming to attention.

“Because, she gets on break in five minutes and she and I have to discuss this whole blind date business.” I groan and that makes Kayla smile even more and I lean my head on my hand.

“Please tell me they are at least .. clean.”

The last guy I had Kayla try to hook me up with, liked to bite his toe nails. I didn’t even get to finish the date because I ended up sneaking to the bathroom and jumping out the window.

I never live it down.

“Oh, come on! That guy was fine. You just don’t like giving people a chance! So what if he smelled a little and had a weird shaped nose? I am sure he was a nice young man.”

“Kayla, his name was Gilbert and he lived with his ten cousins and parakeet. It was never going to happen.”

Kayla huffs and leans back in her chair, looking out the window.

I look over my shoulder, since I guess she was giving me the silent treatment, and I look over at the pictures on the wall.

Black and white photo’s of Pairs, New York, London, China and Australia line the wall and they all seem to have an old, vintage feel to them.

On the walls also holds plates of famous people who have never entered the little place and a door toward the front opens and closes, waitresses and busboys coming in and out.

I remember coming to this place when Mia was looking for a job. Since her parents spent most of their funds on Mason and his dorm room, that meant that if Mia wanted to live in lovers retreat with Aiden, she had to get a job.

Months later, almost getting fired twice due to me and Kayla, and an almost fight with a customer and Mia was going .. strong.

My eyes land on Kayla and I watch as she sweeps her dyed hair behind one ear and looks out the window, where it looked like it was about to snow at any moment.

Her shirt hangs off one shoulder, despite the weather, and her hair is in some braid thing. Moments like this, time seems to stop.

I think of our mother back home, always wanting the perfect daughters to do the perfect things. A mother who prefers not to look at Kayla because she doesn’t live up to ‘The dream.’

All these years I have been trying to live for both of us, trying to make my mother happy so she wouldn’t give shit to Kayla, and now it seemed like I was the reason she never did grow up.

“Hey,” Kayla turns her head and looks at me and I smile a little.

“ Have you talked to mom? Like, at all?” I see her tense up and she looks away, her hand bouncing on the table a little.

“Oh, um...No. I tried talking to her last week, but.. we didn’t get past hello without an argument starting so I hung up.” I sigh.

Great, that meant sooner or later I would be getting a phone call from a very pissed, very talkative, angry mother.

The joys of being the good twin.

“I think we have a match!”

I flinch at the high voice and when I see Mia standing in front of our table, hands on her hips, dirty blonde hair tight in a bun, I drop all my old concerns and focus on the new one.

“So I heard..” I grumpily spit out and Mia laughs and pulls a chair from another table and brings it to ours. She gives me a pointed look.

“You agreed to this.” Kayla looks at me too, her finger twisting her nose ring, and I groan a little.

“That was when I had no clue what I was actually agreeing too.”

“Oh, please,” Mia says, pulling the pen from behind her ear and opening up her little black notebook she takes orders in. She flips a couple of pages while she still talks.

“I know the kind of guys you like. I’m not that bad at picking them. It’s Kayla you should be worried about. She tried getting this Indian guy who said he was the next Jesus to be your first date.”

My eyes snap to Kayla and she brings her hands up in defense. She gives me a small smile, trying to calm me before I started.

“Hey, don’t give me that look! I have never met a guy from India who believed in Jesus. I’m not saying there are not Indians out there who don’t believe in that stuff, it’s just … Okay, look. He was really hot and said I had nice hair. What more would you want in a guy?”

“Unlike you Kayla, I don’t don’t just sleep with a guy because he said my hair looked nice.” I say a little too harshly and I see her eyes turn hurt and then pissed.

I go to open my mouth to apologize, when Mia cuts in.

“Whoa, I am going to stop you both before this turns ugly.” She turns to Kayla and shoves the notepad in front of her.

“Why don’t you tell Kelsey what the guys are like that we interviewed?”

Kayla doesn’t bother to look at the notepad, instead her eyes are straight on me. She shrugs a little, as if the whole thing didn’t matter.

“Oh, I don’t know. Kelsey probably thinks I slept with half of them. Right, Kelsey? Is that your subtle way of calling me a slut?” I rub my hands over my face and take in a breath.

The truth was I never meant to say that to Kayla.

I was still running on nerves from the fact that I still had six nights to spend with the infuriating Julio and the fact that I had to play nice to five guys I never met.

That just puts me more on edge.

Ever since Kayla decided to live the more .. uh, free lifestyle, I have never judged her.

For one, every guy she meets and actually gets intimate with is single, as is she, so what gave me the right to judge?

Plus, the only time I used the word slut, was when Mia got a gummy worm stuck in my hair our junior year, on the day we had pictures. And even then, I felt so bad that I brought her a whole new thing of gummy worms.

And a soda.

“Kayla, “ I breath out her name and I look at her from in-between my fingers. “You know I didn’t mean that. I would never call you anything close to a slut. I have this thing going on, and then Julio-”

“Julio?” Mia pipes in, loud and curious and I snap my mouth shut.

Great, I’ve said too much. Man, when was I going to learn to keep my mouth shut?

“Uh,” I drop my hands and start to play with Nick’s beanie that somehow managed to make its way to my lap.

“Yeah, me and him kind of made a deal.”

Mia startles back a little and her eyes land on Kayla, who seemed to have forgiven me. Kayla looks at Mia and they do this whole weird thing where they communicate without actually talking.

Mia shakes her head, to something Kayla evidently did not say, and Kayla nods her head, going back to twisting her nose ring.

“Okay! Just tell me what the hell you two are .. whatever you two are doing. What?”

I look at each of them, dropping the beanie and Mia smiles and shakes her head, shrugging just like Kayla did a minute ago.

“Nothing. Just I hope you and Lio have a good deal going on. Whatever it may or may not be.”

I roll my eyes and laugh a little, thinking the whole thing was ridiculous.” I know what you are thinking, and no. The deal is strictly business.”

At Least, I think it was. Though, when did letting six nights of your life go into the hands of some Latino badboy who would didn’t even know what the word “Control” even meant?

Hell, I don’t even think it was in his vocabulary.

“So you say,” Kayla finally quips in and I look up at the ceiling, holding in my groan.

“I’m never going to live this down, am I?” I ask, still looking up.

“Nope,” I hear Mia say, followed by her saying something to someone else. I look over to see her waving to a waitress, telling her to come over. I look at Kayla and aim my question at her.

“No matter what I say, even if it is the 100% truth, you are not going to believe a word of it, are you?” She smiles, bunching up her nose, and raises one shoulder.

“It’s very unlikely.”

I don’t say anything else as Mia’s friend and co-worker heads over.

We make our introductions, and when Kayla and Mia get in a heated discussion with her about why they think it might snow early this year, I look out the window.

The clouds over head are dark, but still light enough to let sun shine through. The wind blows outside, obvious by the way the tree in front of the little restaurant leaves go back and forth, as if dancing to some sort of rhythm that they can only hear.

It’s times like these, when the world around you seems to be doing the same things, while you are thinking about the hardest things to face in the world, when you realise how great it must be to have someone there for you.

I look over at Mia, as she laughs and says something to her friend.

I wonder what it must be like for her, to have someone of the opposite sex, to understand her. To show her how beautiful the world and she can be.

It reminds me of the one time in sixth grade, when my teacher went around the room asking if we wanted to one day get married.

I, of course, said yes. Thinking that the world was filled with these loving men who would sweep me away like some Disney princess.

Though, reality is that life is no Disney movie and men are nothing close to princes. They are more like the evil step mothers in the stories, making our lives hell.

Though, when the question came up again, a month ago when Kayla asked Mia if she ever considered tieing the knot with Aiden in the future, I told them both I could never see myself married.

Though, it was a lie.

I mean, come on people! No matter what girl you meet, no matter what the girl has been through or what they want, everyone deep down wants that forever kind of love.

Even me.

The girl who has been searching for it for so long, that she gave up on it awhile ago.

I let out a tense breath and turn back to looking out the window, watching the people walk by. When I see a mom with a child, walking down the sidewalk, I know I need to call my mother.

Which was going to be hell.

I lay my head on my hand, wondering if I could get a headache from just imagining what my mother was going to say to me, when I see something black pass by the window.

I wouldn’t have paid it much attention, if it wasn’t for the tattoo that was so obvious.

I straighten out and I narrow my eyes and when I see a guy with tan colored skin, with a black work shirt on and a leather jacket in one hand, I know who it is immediately.

Julio.

He seems to be paying attention to something across the street and I peek over my shoulder at my group, to see if they noticed him too, but they were too busy with another discussion.

I turn back to see Julio pass over the non busy street, common in the cold days in Michigan, and I see him heading toward a pretty conspicuous black car with tinted windows on the other side.

Not being able to hide my curiosity, I lean forward and press my face to the window.

I watch as he looks both ways, either checking to see if anyone was around or because he was nervous, and brings in a hard breath.

He brings his knuckles to the glass window, knocks twice, and the door opens just enough to let him in.

I see Julio tense up as he pulls his leather jacket on over his shoulders and gets in the car, closing it behind him.

After that?

Nothing.

Literally, the car just sits there and it was like Julio never entered it in the first place. I sit there, still looking at the car, when I feel someone poke me in the arm.

Hard.

“Shit!” I shout a little to loud, startling back at the sudden contact. Mia looks at me a little worried while Kayla looks at me oddly.

“Are you okay? You seemed a little spaced out there for a moment.” I rub the spot where she poked me and I put on a fake smile .

“It was nothing. I just saw a hot guy and it seemed as if he enticed me at first glance.” I  try to make a smoldering look, while Mia’s friend laughs and she nods her head.

“Some men can do that. Did I ever tell you about this man I met in Kentucky once? Oh, he was so delicious. So, it started when I was ….”

They go back to listening to her Kentucky story, though Mia shoots me a few wondering glances and each time I send her a smile.

Though, the minute she turns around, I go back to thinking of Julio and that car.

Sure, it was a human thing. Getting in a car and all of that, but they way Julio acted seemed... out of place.

Maybe all this five blind dates and the six nights he owes me was getting to my head. Plus, I still had that test in Literature due next week.

Maybe all this stress and nerves was getting to my head?

Though, when I turn around and look out the window, expecting to see the car sitting there, instead all I see is a blank spot.

Julio and the car nowhere in sight.

And for some reason, I can’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

And that this was just the beginning.