Page 63 of Honest With You

“I’m so excited to eat all the fancy foods!”

I force myself to smile at that. My dad has a restaurant catering our dinner tonight. Not surprisingly, he won’t be here. He’s still shooting a movie that apparently could generate billions in revenue. I inwardly roll my eyes at that, knowing no amount of money will ever be enough if he’s always working and can’t enjoy it anyway.

What really sucked is he didn’t even bother to call me to greet me either. Simply sent one of his assistants to hand deliver a goldLucid Airwith a bouquet of pink roses and a note saying ‘Happy Birthday, Ava.”. Stephen took the car out for a spin with Reese as soon as it arrived, but not before he tossed the roses in the trash. I’m allergic to flowers, which my dad should have known. But if he had bothered to remember that, he would also realize he’s bought me a car for my last two birthdays.

At eighteen years old, I own 3 hybrid cars that I don’t even drive.

Heaving a sigh that Vanessa immediately catches, she tucks my hand under her arm as we head downstairs. We both smile at Ryder, who is waiting for us at the bottom with a huge panda bear sitting next to him, a small rectangular envelope nestled in its furry arms.

“Happy Birthday, Ava!” He wraps me up in a one arm hug because Ryder is a gentleman. He has on more than one occasion expressed his respect for my relationship with Jesse regardless of the little crush he had for me awhile back. Ryder looks down at me with concern in his eyes before his eyes melt into a smize as he hands me the envelope the panda was holding.

“I remember you mentioning in your first week here that you really wanted to see a panda. So I figured since you already have everything, I could at least give you this.”

I smile at the memory as I tear open the envelope to find three tickets to the San Diego Zoo.

“Why three?”

He tips his head towards the dining area. “I figured you’d want to go with Stephen and Reese.”

My smile grows even wider as I hug the tickets close to my chest, excitement bubbling over while I do a little dance with the panda.

“Thank you, Ryder! I’m so excited!”

His eyes crinkle with laughter. “Glad to hear it, Ava.”

“Guys! I’m starvingggg!”

He suddenly rolls his eyes as he looks over my shoulder at Vanessa, who is quite literally pulling at both our arms now, so we have no choice but to follow her into the dining room where Stephen, Reese and Yaya Ella are waiting for us.

The sinking feeling comes back, knowing the two most important men in my life are missing from what should be an important day for me, but I do my best to school my face into a happy one. For the sake of my friends. For Stephen. For Reese.

* * *

I hear a voice yell out my name and out of the corner of my eye, I see Vanessa running down the hallway. It’s the end of the school day on Monday and normally she would be running out of here, so I’m confused as to what has got her so jittery.

I grab hold of her arms as soon as she huffs to a stop in front of me. I notice people have all stopped what they were doing to stare at us, and not wanting to attract attention, I gesture to the empty chem lab behind her.

All throughout the day, kids at school have been staring at me longer, and whispering as they do. Even though I should be used to it by now, I really thought their fascination with me had died down by now, but apparently something reignited it. I’m not curious enough, however, to reinstall my social media or news apps to find out. If there was anything critical, Mr. Cain would give me a heads up.

Shutting the door behind her, she turns back to me and I’m alarmed when I see that her eyes are blazing with intense fury. She’s clutching her phone tight in a fist, like she wants to hurl the thing straight at the wall.

“Van? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Her eyes are flooded with concern, warring with the anger still residing in them.

Tentatively, she hands me her phone. I’m staring at her, unable to look down as a sense of foreboding fills me. My anxiety spikes and suddenly I’m shaking.

I look down, unable to bear it any longer, and my forehead creases in confusion until I hear Vanessa whisper.

“I’m so sorry, Ava.”

I almost drop the phone in shock. Vanessa had the phone on someone’s Instagram but it isn’t until I scroll to view her feed that I start to put together who it belonged to.

It’s Margaret’s. Jesse’sex-girlfriend. Judging from the photo of Jesse asleep on a sofa chair, her head resting on his shoulder, with the caption, “Life isn’t perfect but you are. Best boyfriend ever.” That might be far from the truth.

My stomach bottoms out and my breathing gets shallow. I look up at Vanessa, but she just nudges my wrist as if to say keep going. So I do.

I scroll down to look at her next post and it’s a selfie of Margaret, with Jesse on his phone in the background, eating a slice of pizza.

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