Home is lights in the windows and the T.V. alive in the living room. I hear it from outside while trotting up. A game. Nothing I care about. It's all the same. No one loses when they're a millionaire, except the poor who bid on them. Mom is no where to be seen, but dad remarks on the hour and the weather. He says I should've called when I was on my way. He thinks I'm going to die in the five miles it takes to get home.
Dinner is almost ready, but I tell them I already ate a snack after practice. Mom doesn't like it, however she allows me to retreat without another word or suggestion of what I can do with a mound of mashed potatoes on my plate, like construct a replica of Mount Rainier. I have Goldfish in my nightstand in case I get hungry. She doesn't know that. It doesn't matter really. There's no value in nourishment when it ceases to satiate. There's no comfort in the paintings and drawings of hands under my bed, on the floor. Black and white. Saturated and pure. Pale with no comparison or care, like him.
Always missing the sparkle on that particular finger. Unlike him.
Even though there's tomorrow, my heart breaks for today.
A buzz sounds beside me. My cell lights up. Emmett wants to meet tomorrow after practice at his house for additional studying. I tell him I will ask my parents when all I want to do is refuse. Edward's face when he saw us together that day in the diner didn't read well. I don't want to scare him away...pause. That moment. The moments after. His face.
I text Emmett again and tell him my parents said yes.