LIOW Ch. 9

Saturday night and she's wasting her time drinking wine, which she knows she's not supposed to be doing, but she doesn't care. Just as long as nobody finds out, there's no problem with it. Too bad that someone is just now approaching her door as she's taking in another sip.

*Knock* *Knock*

She quickly hides the glass cup in the cabinets under the sink.

"Hold on, I'm coming!" She shouts.

She opens the door to welcome Audrey inside.

"Whatcha doing?" Audrey asks.

Abigail is sitting nervously on her bed, thinking of what to say.

"I've just been sitting around. Contemplating my life. What about you?"

"Oh, I was just bored, so I came by to talk for a bit."

She starts smelling something funky and fruity.

"What's that smell?" She sniffs the air and ponders about the room.

"It's probably the air freshener. It's really strong."

"Oh, okay. Are you doing anything tomorrow?" She asks.

"Yeah, I have plans with my friend Marissa. Sorry."

"It's fine, I was just curious," She slightly chuckles, "But I'll get out of your hair now, I can see that you were busy."

"Okay, I'll see you later." She watches carefully as she leaves and closes the door, then waits for a moment before retrieving her cup.

But she just realized that she was supposed to be checking on her neighbor, as Mrs. Nelson told her she had to be doing it daily.

She stood outside of his door, getting ready to knock.

"Hello?" She calls out after knocking.

He finally answered and Abigail paused for a moment.

"What?" He rubs his eyes.

"I was just coming to check on you, but it seems like I woke you up, so I'm heading back to my room. Sorry." She says calmly.

"Okay then... Bye" He watches her strut away and rubs his face as he closes the door with his other hand.

Abigail walked slowly back to her room as she bit at her fingernails. She felt that she was about to break down into tears so she sat down in front of her door, staring intensely at the floor. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then pulled her phone out of her pocket to call Jeremy.

"Hey." Jeremy answers.

She doesn't talk nor answer him.

"You okay Abby?" He asks.

"Maybe. I don't know." She takes another deep breath and looks up at the ceiling.

"If somethings going on you can talk to me about it, you know that, right? Just cause we haven't seen each other for six years doesn't mean we can't be as close as we used to be. I mean I know it's been a long time but I'm still the same friend you had when we were thirteen."

"I know, Jeremy. That's not what this is about. You remember Noah, right? My brother?" She runs a hand through her hair.

"Yeah, you said he was in the Navy, what about him?"

"He died when I was twelve."

"Twelve? How come you never told me about this before?"

"I don't know. I guess I just didn't want to tell anyone else. I only told Marissa. Nevaeh doesn't even know."

"So out of our entire friend group, you've only told Marissa? I mean I'm not mad, I get why. She's your closest friend and she's stuck around longer than any of us, but you should've at least told me too because I care about you and your well-being. I'm here now."

"I would've told you if you didn't move to Cincinnati. Why did you move all the way to Ohio anyway? Your mom should've known not to move there."

"I've tried to convince her multiple times to let us stay here, but she wouldn't listen. But it's great now that I'm on my own. Doesn't it feel nice to get away from family for once?"

"Yeah. I mean after all the pressure I put on myself through highschool, I finally got my stuff together. I'm just scared of losing my scholarship."

"Yeah, I get that. But I know that you can do this. Everyone does."

Abigail sat in silence for another moment, trying to come up with a response.

"Alright well, I'm gonna go now. I'm gonna be busy tomorrow and it's kind of late. Goodnight Jeremy, it was nice talking to you."

"Goodnight Abby, nice talking to you too."

Again, without noticing, Cyrus was being nosey.

Abigail went downstairs to sit outside for a moment and get some air. And whilst sitting on the curb, Cyrus walked out of the front doors and approached her.

"What do you want?" She asks.

He sits down a couple of feet away from her, enough to give her some space.

"It's been a week now. Why don't you talk to me anymore?" He looks over at her with a concerned expression on his face.

"Because you confuse me. The first day we met you were being so rude when I apologized for bumping into you, and then we had a one night stand which didn't even make sense at all in my opinion, and now you're being nice to me. I would talk to you if you didn't make me feel so frustrated and make me feel as though you don't care about me as much as you make it obvious.. If you care about me so much then why are you mean to me?" She frowns.

"I don't know- Maybe because every time I try to be nice to you, you push me away. . But please don't think that I would hurt you, because I really don't want to. I regretted what happened that night. I would never do something to you to make you scared. I don't really care about anyone else who comes to my attention, but ever since we started talking more, I felt different. We may not know anything about each other, but it's clear to me that you're not okay. I don't think I like seeing you this way. I want to be here for you."

Tears fell as she hugged him tightly. She was pondering whether or not she should trust him, but she knew that what he said was true. He really does care about her, and although she could not see it fully, she took him in and accepted him.

"Come on. It's cold out here, I don't want you getting sick." He grabbed her hand and pulled her up to her feet, then took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, tying the sleeves around her neck so that it wouldn't fall.

He pulled her closer to him so that she would stay warmer as they walked back inside and locked the doors. Jared watched them from across the road in his car, squinting at them as they began walking up the stairs.