"Wait, what did you do?" I ask again, turning to him while I cleaned the counters that were a total mess.

"I kissed her."

"So, why are you so worried?" The space between my forehead wrinkles.

Jackson sighs, "I don't know bro, she hasn't responded to me for like hours now." He puts his head in his hands.

"How did she react when you kissed her?"

"She kissed me back." He responds, sitting on the kitchen island while he talked to me.

"Then dude why the fuck are you so scared?" I laughed, "She's probably just busy."

"No, listen to the rest of the story I'm not done." He explains, "After it happened, she well ran away?"

"Where did you guys kiss?" I ask him, he peels the banana and begins to eat it.

"In her garden, the day you dropped me off at her house for the date?" He reminds me.

"Ohhh, I remember! What did you do?" I dramatically gasped in emphasis.

"Nothing." He rolls his eyes, grabbing my shoulders so I'm in front of him.

"Pretend you're me." He says.

"But wouldn't you be you-" I look at him confused.

"Shhhhh- Listen."

"Okay."

"I'm actually taller than her so you need to look taller." He says, I roll my eyes and raise myself so I appear taller.

"You're making me lose my patience."

He explains to me how it happened and I then start to understand, well at least pretend to.

"Does she have a brother?" I ask.

He nods his head, not saying anything afterwards.

"I feel very sorry for you." I touch his shoulder, shaking my head and leaving the kitchen.

I laugh and pick my phone up, scrolling through the device I haven't been on for a couple hours.

"Hey, Inez are you coming on that trip?" Jackson asks me.

"Probably, is it okay if I uh, bring somebody else, if they end up wanting to go?" I replied, he looks at me confused.

He sighs, "If he pays for his part of the trip."

I nod my head in agreement and look through my contacts.

I don't know if I should ask, it's not like he has the time to actually consider coming with me.

He wouldn't wanna go.

Except nothing is stopping me because I just dialed his number and now I'm waiting for him to pick up.

God, what am I doing?

He picks up.

"Hey." I sighed.

"I thought you blocked me." It was as if you could hear his smirk through the phone.

I start to walk over to the couch in order to sit myself down, "Mention it and I'll block you again."

I hear him let out a deep chuckle through the speaker of the phone.

"I called to ask you something." I started to speak but when I was about to continue the words got lost in my throat.

"Ask." He replies, I clear my throat in order to talk again.

"Next week- um we're, we meaning my friends. Jackson, Alisha, Viola, August." I hesitated through while explaining, "we're going to a resort in San Diego, it's a road trip- I was wondering."

"You want me to come?" He questioned, I nodded as if he could see me through the phone but later answered with a yes.

"When next week?" He followed up.

"Saturday. We're going for a week."

"I'll come with." He quickly answered, I smiled to myself and immediately dropped it when realizing what I was doing.

"Okay."

"Okay." I was relieved that he agreed, otherwise I would've felt embarrassed.

"And also-" I added after remembering, "you're going to have to pay your part of the trip."

"I'll be paying for the whole trip, don't worry." He says, then hangs up.

I sighed, not believing what he had just said. He didn't even give me a chance to refuse.

Jackson walks up to me, "He said no?" His brows furrow and he messes up my hair with his right hand, I roll my eyes.

"He's paying for the entire trip." I looked up at him, getting up to start packing.

"Holy shit! Thank your boyfriend for me, yeah?" He exclaimed in excitement, I laughed and pushed the side of his arm playfully.

I watched as he left my apartment through the front door, I put my phone down.

It was hard to process that I maybe had grown to enjoy Ronan's company, so much that I invited him to road trip that I didn't even agreed to go on before.

I suppress those thoughts before I brought myself to the bathroom, slowly taking my clothes off.

After I stared into the mirror in front of me, studying the features on my face while criticizing the size of my nose and lips, the shape of my eyes.

I picked apart the insecurities I had of my own while taking out the claw clip in my hair, pushing it so it was all behind my back.

Once I had stepped out of the shower, I wrapped my hair in a towel and put a robe on, leaving the bathroom.

I head to my room and pick out a small red

tank and a pair of sweatpants.

After putting them on, I went straight to my bed. I turned off the lights and opened the windows so there's a small light source from somewhere.

I grabbed a book, a classic that I haven't read before and began to skim through the pages.

Then I started to actually read it after a good ten minutes of staring at the book.

It grew cold as I felt a frigid breeze hit my bare arms and back, I quickly covered the most I could of my body using the thick blanket beside me.

As I continued to read the book, I'd realized that I've already finished half of it. I slowly start to wish that I lived the life that the main character has.

It's hilarious isn't it? I run away from those who I develop a liking to, yet I still pray that I have someone by me.

My finger swipes over the pair of cracked lips on my face and I reach for the lip balm on my nightstand, putting some on the top and bottom.

The small glimpses of moonlight from the medium sized windows wash the room white. I close my book loud with emphasis and make my way to the windows to close the curtains.

I finally decide to sleep after those three hours of scrolling through social media, reading and overthinking.

-

i knoww this chapter was so boring , but I promise I have so much planned for the trip 🫣I LOVE YOU GUYS SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE