7 Chapter Seven

Chloe's P.O.V

Once it was around five-forty, Dr. Cambridge let us go. It was my last class of the day and it was exciting that I could finally go back to my dorm.

"What are you doing after this?" I heard Jess ask Luke, not even glancing in my direction.

Luke stood up and put his backpack around his shoulders. "I'm actually meeting a friend for dinner at the caf," he said coolly, running his hands through his brown hair.

"What a coincidence! I am meeting someone at the caf, too!" she grinned as she smacked her gum.

Luke raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly. "Really?"

"Yeah, I met him in sociology. His name is Jacob," she grinned, moving her smooth hair to one shoulder.

"You must be the girl my friend Jacob said was eating at the caf with us," Luke laughed, his face flushed with relief for some reason.

She cocked her head. "What a coincidence! We might as well walk there together." I supposed 'What a coincidence!' was her catch phrase, and that was going to get old really fast. Was it too late to change classes?

Before I could hear another word, I walked outside of the building and headed back to my dorm, wanting to roll my eyes. There was no doubt in my mind that Jacob had already met her and asked her to eat dinner with them at the cafeteria. It just boggled my mind at how easy some things were for people. Everyone had their own clique, even in college. I was just still trying to find out where I belonged.

I walked into my dorm, surprised to see Chloe Marshall sitting on my couch in the small living room area. "What are you doing here?" I asked without thinking, which was one of my many faults.

Marshall huffed out a breath and her glossed lips curled up into a smile. "I would have asked you the same question except that you probably live with Hailee."

I nodded and decided it was my time to head into my room. I didn't feel like talking to her right now, but when did I ever feel like talking to her?

"Hey," she called after me as I opened the door to my room.

"Yeah?" I answered, staring at her.

"Do you know when Hailee will be here?" she asked, looking in her compact mirror while cleaning up her eyeliner.

"I don't know, I thought that you would know, considering that you are sitting here on our couch," I shrugged. "Did Hailee give you a key to our dorm or did she allow you in and run off?" The two possibilities sounded like something Hailee would do.

Marshall smirked. "She gave a key to me this morning, saying that I could drop by any time I like. Besides, I am actually here because we are going to eat at the caf with a few friends." She closed her compact shut and stared at me with her piercing blue eyes, folding her thin arms. "You didn't want to join, did you? Hailee said you wouldn't, but I thought I might as well ask."

"Well that was polite of you, but Hailee was right. I don't feel like going," I said more coldly than what I meant. I already knew who they were meeting, and there was no way I wanted to hang out with them some more.

Marshall nodded and looked around our dorm, probably comparing it to hers. My first instinct was that she thought this place looked terrible compared to her dorm, but I remembered that I have Hailee Macintyre as a roommate, whose family spent as much money needed to make sure Hailee was pampered and happy.

I noticed the bored look in Marshall's eyes and smirked. I might not have really liked her, but I didn't really want her bored while she was here. I took the remote off the tv stand and handed it to her. "Here, you can watch tv while you wait‒ that is, if you want to."

She gingerly took the remote from my hand. "Thanks," she said, her eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

"You're welcome," I smiled as warmly as possible, which was pretty hard to do. "I'll be in my room if you need something," I said and quickly went inside of my room. I threw down my things in the floor and flung myself on my bed, feeling myself relax for the first time today. I looked at the pictures of my family on the walls of my bedroom and smiled, especially the one of my gray tabby Miss Kitty who was in the middle of sneezing.

It made me sad that I was hours away from my adorable fat cat. I missed her warmth and squishiness on my lap, purring like the fat potato she was. I could have lied and told the campus that I had some sort of anxiety where I could keep Miss Kitty in my dorm with me, but I didn't because it wasn't the right thing to do.

My phone started vibrating and all of the peace and quiet I once had was taken away from me. I sat up groggily and picked up the phone to see a reminder set for me to skype my family.

I smiled and jumped off my bed, opened up my laptop on my small desk and sat down in the desk chair. It had been a while since I had spoken with my parents. The last time I remembered calling them was after band camp.

"Chloe!" my mom exclaimed as soon as the skype opened. "You look so pretty today," she squinted her eyes while adjusting her glasses.

I laughed. "Don't I usually look pretty, Mom?" I joked. Mom knew that it was out of my element to be dressing up. I liked dressing up as long as it was something pretty and comfortable‒ which was basically nothing I owned, so I never dressed up. But just because I liked wearing sweatshirts didn't mean I don't wear makeup along with my lazy clothing. I always made sure to wear makeup because to me, it somehow balanced the fact that I was wearing more casual clothing.

"Of course you do, but I typically see you wearing sweatshirts and t-shirts," she smiled.

"Where's Dad?" I asked, not seeing him on the screen with her. Usually at this point, Dad would have said something similar to Mom.

"He says he's very sorry he couldn't skype with me, but you know how his work goes," she shook her head. "That man works too much for his job."

"Don't even get me started on how many times I told him to quit," I sighed. My dad spent plenty of hours at the fire department to be making way more money than what he does, and he missed too many holidays to prove that. I loved my dad, but it was a shame that I didn't get to see him as often as I wanted.

"Chloe, you know he can't just quit. He loves his work," Mom tried to say with an understanding voice. I knew there was some part of her that wanted him to quit his job, but she would never admit it. "Enough about that, how is school so far?" she smiled, wrinkles forming at the corners of her eyes.

"You mean the only day I've gone?" I grinned. "School is well… school. I don't know what you expect me to say honestly."

"You're supposed to be a normal child and tell me how your day went, and if anything important or eventful happened," Mom said giddily.

"But Mom she isn't normal," I heard one of my brother's say. Even though my brothers were identical twins, it wasn't that hard to figure out which one was which, and this case, I knew exactly who was speaking.

"Elijah," I rolled my eyes. "Why don't you just go play Call of Duty with Felix or something?"

Elijah appeared in the video chat, smiling the same mischievous smile he always did when he wanted to get on my nerves. His brown eyes were full of amusement and I could see his messy, dark blonde hair wasn't brushed like usual. I even noticed the new bands they put on his braces. "I can't play with Felix right now. He's too busy doing homework or something," he said, picking at the wood on the desk.

Mom glared at Elijah, who grinned sheepishly and stopped picking at the desk. She folded her arms, looked back to me and forced a smile. I could tell she had a long day at work because of how tense her shoulders were and her easily provoked aggravation towards Elijah, but Elijah was too oblivious and idiotic to notice. He was fifteen after all, and everyone knows that most guys experience a brain fart from ages twelve to eighteen.

"Hey Chloe," I heard Felix say as he appeared on the video chat with Miss Kitty in his arms. "I brought Miss Kitty because I thought you would like to see her."

Then there was Felix, the one who somehow kept part of his brain during puberty. He was always the more studious, sensitive one out of the two, and even with that said, that didn't mean he couldn't act like an idiot either.

I felt part of my heart melt at the sight of Miss Kitty. She stared straight at the computer screen with her big green-yellow eyes, flicking her tail back and forth in curiosity. I giggled at the sight of Miss Kitty's fat rolls spilling over the top of Felix's arms.

"How is my fat potato doing?" I asked excitedly, wishing I could reach through the screen to scratch behind Miss Kitty's ears.

Miss Kitty's eyes lit up as she stared at the screen and struggled out of Felix's arms.

"She's been doing fine. She keeps sleeping on your bed, and I only know that because I saw a huge indention," Felix said as he carefully set the cat down on the desk.

It made me a sad to think about Miss Kitty sleeping on my bed because whenever she was sad or lonely she would always come scratching at my door to snuggle in bed with me. She would do that ever since we adopted her when she was just a kitten.

The story behind her adoption was a bittersweet one. I found her at my grandparent's house in the woods, undoubtedly abandoned to fend for herself by some cruel person, because for some horrible reason, people tended to dump their animals at my grandparent's house. She was blind in one eye, had worms, and infested with fleas. Although her fate seemed rather grim, it was a miracle that she made it to the vet clinic and got the help she needed. Now she's just a piggy, lazy potato.

Miss Kitty meowed and rubbed herself against Mom's computer, and finally sprawled herself all over her keyboard, blocking my view of Mom, Elijah, and Felix.

"Miss Kitty get off my computer! You know you're not supposed to be on there," Mom said in a harsher tone. I could hear Mom scoot the chair back and Miss Kitty's desperate, scratchy whines.

"Mom," I said with a little concern in my voice. "Are you okay?"

The call ended, and I was left confused. I dialed Mom's number and waited patiently for her to pick up, wondering what happened.

"Chloe?" Mom asked. "Why are you calling me? We were just on the skype call together."

"Mom what happened? The skype call ended for some reason," I said, furrowing my eyebrows.

"I don't know I…" she paused and then burst into laughter.

I couldn't help but laugh a little. "What are you laughing about, Mom?"

"I tried getting Miss Kitty off the desk during our skype call and in the process, she must have pushed the power button on the computer unintentionally," she laughed, probably shaking her head and folding her arms like she usually did when she found something funny.

Loud fits of laughter bubbled out of me, as I felt my eyes begin to water. "That sounds like something Miss Kitty would do on accident."

"Well she's sitting at my feet at the moment, looking at me innocently like she didn't do anything wrong," Mom said. "Did you hit the power button, Miss Kitty?" she cooed at him.

I smiled and stared at one of the many photos of Miss Kitty I had on my bedroom walls. "Has she been eating regularly?"

"What kind of silly question is that? Of course she has been eating, and she makes sure that I feed her on time, at exactly five o' clock every afternoon," she said defensively.

"Geez, I'm sorry. I did not intend to offend you," I laughed. "I just thought she might have changed her eating habits since I've been gone."

"Listen, honey, that cat has been well fed for so long even if we wanted to change her eating habits she wouldn't let us," Mom laughed. "She would go on strike and use Elijah's bed as a litter box."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that," I shook my head. "I remember when we tried to change her food to something healthier, she got really mad and laid a present on Elijah's bed." It didn't seem like it happened that long ago since the memory of Elijah's horrified face was still fresh in my mind. I wished I had gotten a picture of him.

"Poor Elijah always got the other end of things when it comes to Miss Kitty."

"Literally the other end," I smirked.

"Chloe," Mom tried to say with disappointment, but amusement was apparent in her tone.

"As much as I would like to stay on the phone for hours, I actually have homework to do," I folded my arm underneath my elbow as I looked at the leering Chemistry book that peeked out of my backpack.

"Already?" she asked with confusion.

I sighed. "Yeah, I mean, it's due in about a week, but I don't want to kick off this college semester procrastinating, it's a really bad habit."

"I understand. I wouldn't want you to procrastinate either, since I ended up doing that back many years ago when I went to college. It's a pain when you just start something the night it is due."

"Exactly, so I guess I'll let you go then? Tell Dad I love him and that I wish he would quit working," I tried to smile.

Mom laughed a little. "Okay, Chloe, take care of yourself over there. We all love and miss you back home."

"Love y'all, too. Bye Mom," I said and hung up the phone.

I really didn't want to get off the phone, but I knew that if I didn't, there was no way I would have started working on my chemistry homework. From what I learned in high school, chemistry was the worst subject of all, and should not be taken lightly.