19

irl, social media, facetime

the girls return to school after lunch and head to their third period classes. kaia has computer coding with matt. this is the class she always used to look forward to the most, now it's her least favourite.

she just sits in the far back and pays attention to nothing other than her computer and her phone to text people about how much she hates being in a class with matt.

matt loves being around her, but the awkwardness is nearly painful. he does hate confrontation, so he chooses to avoid her as much as he can.

their current situation is extremely confusing to both of them. they still care about and love eachother, but hate being around eachother and do everything to avoid the other person.

from where kaia sits in class, she can occasionally see a peek of what matt is doing on his phone; when she's looking, that is.

matt tries to erase the knowledge that she is behind him everyday, he has to tune it out or he'll go crazy.

the first few computer coding classes after the fight were easy because neither of them even showed up, they didn't have to worry about it. but after a point, they both realized that they still needed the credit and started going again. they just made sure to avoid eachother.

the class today wasn't too bad, but kaia swore she saw matt looking through her instagram, but she couldn't be sure.

the bell rings after class and james is waiting outside her class for her. matt walks out first and completely ignores him. kaia walks out and holds his hand as they walk through the hallway.

"you wanna come over to my house today?" james asks her.

"sure! chris is going to chloe's anyway so i'm not driving her." kaia responds.

"how are they getting to chloe's place if you drove her?" he asks.

"um, matt will probably just drop them off on the way." she clears her throat.

he looks at her and tries to understand her facial expressions.

"still have a hard time talking about him?" james asks.

"i guess so. it's more just like, i don't talk to him so i feel weird talking about him, i guess." kaia responds.

"makes sense, i get that." james agrees.

he walks her to her last class of the day and they text eachother the whole period.

after school when the bell rings, kaia meets james at his car, and they head to his place. chloe meets the triplets at their van and matt drops the two off at her place before returning home.

james doesn't understand why it's so awkward for her, so he hasn't stopped parking right next to the triplets.

kaia and james just sit around watching tv. they ordered food and are kinda just hanging out with james' sister ally.

every couple hours, chloe will check in with kaia and tell her how good things are going with chris. they were also having lots of fun.

______________________________________

chloe.warner posted

liked by kaiawright, chrissturniolo, nicolassturniolo, nathandoe, jamesprince, matthewsturniolo, 296,654 others

chloe.warner chris has too much energy bro

comments

kaiawright cute couple>chloe.warner shut up liked by chrissturniolo

chrissturniolo you've made yourself 3 iced coffees so far and i've had 2>chloe.warner you're still always hyper

user oop matt accidentally liked

nathandoe now i want coffee>chloe.warner i'll bring you one tomorrow

jamesprince why his feet naked??>chloe.warner he said he was "overheating">chrissturniolo i was

user haha matt got caught stalking

user did he mean to like this??>user it was prob on accident he hasnt liked kaias or chloes posts in months>user kid wasnt sneaky enough

user awkwarddddd

user yall say its weird i think its cute that matt still cares>user he probably just wants to see how she's doing and looks at chloes posts>user i still stalk my ex's bestfriend's account to check on him>user thats all it is thats what matt is doing liked by chloe.warner

______________________________________

kaia has only been to james' house one time other than today. she loves his sister, she's a year younger than her and the triplets. she has a few classes with nate because they're the same age.

part way through the movie they were watching, james gets up to go to the bathroom, but forgot his phone on the couch.

once he had closed the bathroom door, she peeked at his phone but didn't touch it, curiosity got the best of her.

she saw a few notifications from a contact labeled "kristina" and she sat in thought for a minute.

kristina? maybe a family member? or classmate? maybe a friend from his old school? better to not think about it, why stress herself out?

she sat back and went on her phone. she scrolled through insta and saw chloe's post again. but, this time she noticed that matt had liked the post. she opened the comments and read through the hundreds of people talking about matt, as always.

she read everyone saying how he still cares and is just checking in on her, which unfortunately made her curious. she went to check her dm requests and scrolled through the thousands of youtube fans.

almost every single message was about matt. and the ones that weren't still made her think about him.

"the first poem i wrote that wasn’t about you was in all capital letters like it was trying to compensate for your absence. it was about a world far away from this one where all of the plants were terrifying, but had healing powers if you  had the guts to touch them. the first poem i wrote that wasn’t about you puffed up it's throat like a bullfrog and begged to be kissed. it's my favorite poem because i hate it so much. i read it at least once a day and think : so this is what i’m capable of without you. go figure. there is a hole in everything and i find you there smiling like you don’t have anywhere else to be. the first poem i wrote that wasn’t about you might one day be regarded as a masterpiece. people will come from all over the world to run their fingers over the print and marvel at how empty it is of you. they will not recognize your scent clinging silently to their fingers. because if you walk into a room and notice what is missing from it, it is still there, isn’t it? the first poem i wrote that wasn’t about you was still about you. damn it. always."

james walks out of the bathroom and sits down next to kaia, putting an arm around her.

she turns her phone off and rests her head on his shoulder while watching the movie.

she thinks about the message from "kristina" the whole time but doesn't want to bring it up because she doesn't want him to know that she saw it.

after a few more hours of hanging out, james drives kaia home and chloe drives chris home.

chloe had walked him inside because she wanted to see trevor before she left. she was crouched down in the hallway petting trevor when matt came downstairs.

"oh, hi chloe." matt notices her.

"hi, matt. don't worry, kaia isn't here. i was just dropping chris off and wanted to see the dog." chloe stands up.

"phew, okay. sorry, i just got stressed for a minute there." matt sighs.

"don't worry about it. i gotta get going now, i'll see you tomorrow at school." chloe says.

all three triplets wave goodbye to chloe and she drives home. she decides to facetime kaia on the way back instead of music. she sets her phone up on the magnetic stand and calls kaia.

______________________________________

hey chlo, what's up?

just driving home from dropping chris off and i wanted to check in before you go to bed.

i'm doing good, james just dropped me off.

everything go good with him?

yeah, pretty much.

pretty much?

i just saw this text on his phone and i'm overthinking it. it's probably nothing.

contact name?

kristina.

hm. family member? friend from old school?

that's what i was thinking. i'm not sure, i don't really want to worry about it.

fair. i just talked to you know who when i dropped chris off.

what did he say?

he just got spooked that i was in there and i told him you weren't with me.

fair. he say anything else?

no, not really.

okay. you should probably focus on driving, not on talking to me.

you're right. i'll talk to you later.

bye, love you babe.

love you to the moon and to saturn.

______________________________________

1461 words