Annabelle

I've spent the last 24 hours thinking a lot about Tyler and what he told me. I wish I could have talked to my best friend Sara about it, but I wanted to keep it a secret like I'd promised. So I worked through it myself and I've decided to take a leap of faith and believe Tyler, at least until it's proven otherwise.

My phone starts ringing right on time and I answer it, for the first time without any hesitation or nervousness. "Hey, Tyler."

"Anna?" He sounds surprised. He couldn't have possibly heard anything in my greeting to him, right? That's ridiculous.

"I just wanted to apologize right away for the way our conversation ended last night. It wasn't the best way to handle what you'd told me."

"What?" This time he's definitely surprised. "There's nothing you have to apologize for. I should have explained it better or maybe waited to tell you until we get to know each other better. I've just learned the hard way that the name Jet Valentine can cause extreme reactions, so I guess I wasn't really thinking much beyond the point of wanting you to know."

"Well, now I know and we can move on," I say, glad to put this all behind us. Apparently, the topic makes both of us a bit uncomfortable.

"Move on?" His laughter comes abruptly and I'm starting to relax some more. "Anna, you are definitely one of a kind, I can already tell. You are the first girl that hasn't bombarded me with a million questions at the mere mention of the name, or begged me to set up a meeting with him."

I'm starting to realize that I like this side of him. At the beginning, he seemed a bit arrogant and full of himself. But the more we talk, the more I can see that there's a lot more to him than that.

"I'll just take that as a compliment then." I'm smiling widely, hoping my face isn't going to break from it. I've been smiling a lot more since I started talking to Tyler just a few days ago. Is that weird?

"You should." He says, his voice stronger again. "So Anna, now you have to tell me some more about yourself since I believe we've only talked about me this whole time and you-know-who."

"Ah good thing you said it this way since a very important fact about me is that I'm a huge Harry Potter Fan."

"Are you serious? Me too." He sounds as excited as me.

"Have you been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida? We went last summer and it was so awesome. We took like a million pictures to remember every little detail. It felt so surreal." My enthusiasm is starting to escalate soon so I try and calm down. I can get like that sometimes. I get so excited that I feel like I'm going to explode into a million pieces at any moment.

"You have no idea how badly I've been wanting to go but it just hasn't been possible yet." Somehow he sounds sad and I feel guilty and bad for throwing it in his face like that.

"I'm sure you'll be able to go soon." I have a feeling it might be better to change the topic to distract him. "Ok, let's see. Things about myself. I'm 17 and just started my senior year of high school a few months ago. That means I'll be graduating next year, but I'm not absolutely sure yet what I want to do after."

"What is it that you like to do? What is your passion? Besides Harry Potter of course." He's joking around and I'm glad he's over his mood already.

"I like taking pictures," I admit to him.

"That's awesome. Are you any good?" He asks and I can hear the smile in his voice.

"Hey! Of course, I'm good."

"Just checking if you know it or not." He doesn't say anything else, waiting for my reply.

"I do," I admit quietly. "At least other people seem to think so. I've won a few contests over the years, so I hope that means I'm ok."

"That's awesome. Congratulations, Anna." The sincerity in his voice takes me by surprise. "I'm sure you're way more than just ok."

"Thank you." The telltale of heat begins to seep into my cheeks. This guy has made me blush more in a few phone conversations than any other guy has in real life.

Go figure!

A big yawn escapes my mouth, and I'm not fast enough to cover it up.

"You should go to bed. I'm sorry I always keep you up this late. I wish I could call you earlier so we'd have more time to talk." He pauses for a second before continues. "There's so many things I want to ask you."

"You can always text me during the day." The words are out before I can stop them, as usual.

Mouth meet filter, filter meet mouth. Damn time you two get to know each other well.

"Are you sure?"

Well, now I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I don't want to back out. Plus, I'm probably 80-90% sure so that's good enough.

"Yup." Is my official answer to him and he seems happy about it.

"Alright. Maybe I'll do that then. And prepare yourself. Tomorrow we'll start playing 21 questions, so you better have some good questions ready too. And no chickening out, we'll both have to answer them all."

"Yay. I can't wait." I say, the sarcasm easily detectable in my voice. Tyler laughs so I have to start laughing too.

We hang up, and I'm left wondering why I've gotten myself in even deeper just now. Apparently, I'm a sucker for making my life even more complicated.

😍😍

🤷

❤