Forty four

I saw a smile wash up his face the moment I tapped on the green icon to answer and my face showed on the screen. His eyes looked different and I couldn't see any of his friends around him.

"Where are your friends?" I asked him.

"They are behind me." His words were slow.

"I don't see them. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good." He replied then lifted his phone above his head and I could see some group of boys there, Nick included. They were sitting on some big rocks in a circle and there were beer cans in the middle and something else but I couldn't tell what it was, he had taken his phone back to his face.

"What happened to your face?" I had to ask, he looked different. His eyes looked dull.

"My face?" He asked, touching his face with his other hand.

"Yeah."

"I don't know...." He smiled again. "Julie, you are....you are just so cuteeeee." I smiled when he said that but it suddenly occurred to me.

"Are you drunk?" Was he drunk? He sounded drunk.

"Hmmn?" He smiled again.

"Are you drunk?"

"No." He shook his head, his smile not leaving his lips.

"Would you know if you were drunk?"

"I'm not drunk Julie, I can still walk properly."

"So? Not all drunk people stagger." I hope he wasn't drunk.

"Okay, maybe....maybe I'm a little drunk." He chuckled this time.

"O, my god. What of Nick?" I had to ask because the last time, Uche was the one to bring Nick home when he(Nick) had gotten drunk and now Uche was drunk, I hope Nick wasn't.

"Hmmn?"

"Is Nick drunk too?"

"Nick's wasted." He grinned while he answered.

"How could you get drunk Uche?" I became worried.

"Don't worry, I'm fine. I didn't drink much."

"How are you gonna get home?"

"I will, somehow." He smiled.

"The things you guys do...." I shook my head with a facepalm.

"Julie?" He called my name making me look back at my screen."You're pretty, like really pretty, you know." I smiled despite my being worried. His drunk self was so full of praise, almost no different from his sober self.

"I know that Uche."

"And your lips, they are just so soft I wanna kiss you forever Julie." He confessed.

"Tell the others, you should come home now before it's later and darker."

"Yeah, we are about to.....we are almost leaving." He had his dreamy smile again.

"Can Nick walk?" I questioned.

"I think so?"

"And you two can come back safe?"

"Yeah, don't worry." I sighed when he asked me not to worry again.

"So this is why you wanted to see me bad, you were drunk."

"No," he shook his head, "even if I wasn't drunk, I'd still wanna see you."

"Uche!" I heard Nick's voice. Uche turned his neck backward. I could see Nick signaling him to come back to the group.

"You better start coming home now," I told him when he turned back to his screen.

"Yeah, that's probably why he's calling. I'll see you soon." He kissed his screen before stopping the call. I smiled while shaking my head, his drunk self was a whole funny character.

After he had ended the call and I had finished the ending chapter of my book, I decided to go to the school blog to see who was been criticized today by fellow students; that was all they did these days, bully others on the platform. I still wonder why the school authority hadn't taken it down and stopped all students from using it.

I suddenly remembered what Uche told me earlier at his house before we went to the park; what he said about Casey being the reason she was been socially snubbed by almost the whole school.

I decided to check the school blog's old blogcasts to see if the video was still there. I wanted to see the video that made everyone treat her the way they did.

Tapping on the search bar, I typed in Nick's name and a lot of results came through. What was I thinking, searching for the video with his name, they were lots of topics with videos on the blog attached to his name. I cleared the search bar and typed in Casey's name and voila! There it was, different videos popped up but they all had similar headings.

I clicked on the first video presented at the top, and it read;

Is Nick dating the new girl, Casey? Watch and find out...

The video started with a girl laying in bed with her PJs but she had make-up on, who on earth went to bed with makeup on???? I had to ask myself that because it was obvious she was just wearing makeup for the video and the PJ she had on too was probably for the video she was making too. I continued to watch;

"So guys, it's Mira here...." the girl in the video started."You all know about the viral question everyone's asking at our school; Is Nick dating Casey? So in case you don't know; Casey's the name of the new girl at our school. You remember when Nick asked a lucky girl out in front of his entire classmates, well it's her. Yup, she's the girl who said no to Nick in front of everyone but now, to the main story of today....." The girl whispered her last few words dramatically in a voice still loud enough for the audience to hear.

"If she rejected Nick then why are some people sharing relationship rumors about them both.... I'll tell you but first watch this video, you'll understand better." The girl added last before disappearing from the screen. A different video replaced her.

"Nick...." I heard Casey's voice and paused the video, I needed to increase my phone's brightness because I always liked my phone's brightness darker when I used it but at this point, I wanted to be sure it was Casey in the video.

I played the video after having added brightness to my phone's screen;

"Nick....." I saw a younger-looking Casey leaning against a wall, Nick standing over her with his hands against the wall like he was stopping her from leaving. There was little distance between them. It was dark where they were but not too dark to hide their faces, it looked like they were in one of the school's old classrooms.

"Shhhh." I heard Nick tell her before leaning in and kissing her on the lips. I paused my screen because.... what the fuck?? They were kissing, Nick and Casey were kissing!! Nick always acted as if he had never been close to Casey whenever we were at school and Casey on her part told me just the other day that she liked Nick, the way she sounded then, one would think she had never gotten a chance with him.

After cringing a little from what I just watched, I played the video to continue from where it stopped when I paused it;

They were still kissing and Nick had his hands all over her body while he kissed her, he even put his right hand underneath her top. I had seen enough, I just past-forwarded the video, skipping the whole part and I stopped when I saw the girl with the makeup again.

******

Heyy, it's your author Geni. Please note that everything written here is nothing but fiction. Please vote as you read, comment your thoughts, and don't forget to leave a review, I am very open to constructive criticism. I'm on all socials as @genika3na.