I headed into the kitchen, half expecting my mum to lash out and me, but instead, she was busy watching something at the dining table on her tablet. She even smiled at me when I headed to grab a juice box from the fridge.
So, it's not her. I thought, mentally cleaning her name of an imaginary list of suspects. I headed to the shop, wondering maybe if it was my father or one of the technicians, but they were all busy changing screens, and my father didn't look like he'd gotten up to do anything in the last three hours. I hung out with Theresa for a while, helping her out by holding things up, and handing her tools before eventually leaving the shop.
It was seven thirty P.M. when I got upstairs to my room. I put my laptop aside before heading to take a shower. If it was one of my sisters that saw us, then it should be okay - sort of. I prepared myself to confront them when I left the bathroom.
When I got out of the shower and walked into my room I eased a brow in confusion when I spotted Chloe sitting on my bed and staring straight at me.
"Do you mind?" I asked, motioning towards my towel wrapped body. She didn't look embarrassed though, and she just shrugged.
"Okay, what are you doing here?" I asked before trailing off in realization. I frowned a little, speaking up. "Were you the one that slammed the door to the workroom?"
Chloe looked away from me, staring at her lap before she eventually nodded, answering my question.
My face warmed up at that. "So you saw us?" I asked, running a hand through my wet curly hair. She looked up at me before nodding, only making my face to grow warmer.
"Are you guys dating?"
My eyes widened in shock, and I immediately shook my head as I wondered how on earth she'd come to that conclusion.
"No," I said, still shaking my head. I stopped, running a hand through my hair instead. "Why would you think that?" I asked, watching her shrug in response.
"I don't know. Maybe it was because he was closing in like exams towards the end of a semester, but you know, just maybe," she said, obvious sarcasm staining her tone.
I sighed, walking over to my bed before seating beside her at the edge.
"We're not dating," I said, trying to drill the information into her head. "I don't know what happened down there..."
"Do you like him?" she asked, cutting me mid-sentence. I turned my head to look at her, feeling my face warm up as I nodded slightly.
"Yeah," I muttered, playing with a loose thread of my brown towel.
"Ah, so you're gay?"
"I don't know. I just like Felix," I answered honestly. "What I'm saying is that I've never actually thought deeply about it. I really don't think I want to either."
"Oh, okay," she said. I looked down to find her wiggling her dark-skinned toes in the black fur carpet. I shook my head, smiling a little before staring up at the wall clock above.
"It's almost eight thirty," I said.
"Yeah, we should have had dinner by now," she said before getting up. "I'll be going now."
I nodded my head, watching as she headed for my room door. She suddenly turned, giving me a worried look.
"I'm okay with you dating Felix — or whatever it is you're doing with him. I'm sure Samantha will feel the same way, but I'm not too sure about our parents..." she trailed, pushing away the braid that had come loose from the colorful bobbin pins behind her ear.
"Yeah, I know," I said, fidgeting with my fingers. I remember how my mum had reacted when I had told her who Wyatt was dating. She'd spent all evening grumbling to herself and making funny faces. I don't think I can count the number of times she mentioned 'kids these days' under her breath. Of course, she never did it in front of Wyatt or Ji-Hun, but she thought it, and it was scary enough.
My sister smiled a little before walking out the door and closing it behind her. I sighed, deciding that it was time to get dressed.
A few minutes later I headed down for dinner. We were having potatoes with tomato sauce, and for the first time in a while, my parents were at the table with us.
"Ben, who was that person you had over today? I haven't seen him before."
I blinked, looking up from my plate of food to look at my mother. Her curly hair was matted back as usual. I looked away, poking a piece of potato with my fork before speaking up.
"He's a senior from school. We're working on revamping the school website," I started, looking back at her "His name's Felix."
My mother nodded, putting a forkful of potato into her mouth.
"You're working on a web design?" my father asked, making me look over at him. I nodded, putting a piece of potato into my mouth. "That's great. We'd need you to know a little bit of that when you finally join us at the shop."
I let a weak smile form on my face at his words. Yeah, I was going to end up working with him at the shop. My mind went to the pamphlets and magazines Mrs. Rivers had given me before I shook my head.
It's not the time to think about that. I thought as I continued to eat my meal. I looked up after a while, turning to find Chloe giving me a sorry look before she returned her attention to her own food. After a while, we were all done eating, and I helped Samantha with the dishes while my parents and Chloe left the kitchen.
I found myself letting out little sighs as I rinsed and put away plate after plate. Samantha turned to me, raising a brow in curiosity as she paused scrubbing the dish in her hand.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, making me shake my head.
"Nah, I just have a lot of things on my mind," I said, running my wet fingers through my thick hair before I returned to rinsing the washed dishes Samantha was stacking on the counter by me. She nodded, turning away before she turned back to me again.
"Did you fight with your girlfriend?"
I blinked in surprise, almost dropping the plate in my hand. "What? No!"
"Ah, okay," she said, looking away again. "When are you going to introduce us to her?"
"I don't have a girlfriend Samantha."
She pouted, sighing before dipping the yellow sponge into the dishwater and scrubbing the ceramic plate in her hand. I looked away from her, rolling my eyes before returning my attention to the unrinsed plates on the counter.
We were done soon after, and Samantha went to join Chloe in the living room while I headed for my room.
I turned the lights off, heading to my bed with my laptop before turning it on.
Digital_Switch [FELIX]
How are you doing?
9:45 PM.
Terabyte101 [ME]
I'm doing fine. I had dinner a while ago.
9:50 PM.
I replied to Felix's message on Kaneva before opening up my Google Hangouts page on my computer. I'm not sure why I didn't want to ask about the kiss. Well, it had been sort of a kiss.
Digital_Switch [FELIX]
Ah, okay.
10: 01 PM.
Are you coming online to the platform, or are you just staying at the chat?
10: 02 PM.
Terabyte101 [ME]
I don't know. Maybe I'll log into the platform later.
10: 03 PM.
I replied before closing the Kaneva tab altogether. I headed to the Google hangouts tab, discovering one hundred and fifty unread messages.
What are they even talking about? I asked myself as I navigated through the messages. I gave up on reading them and just scrolled down to the last one. I found three speech bubbles moving, showing that they were all typing at the moment.
Wyatt:
I have a biology test soon.
Ji-Hun:
You'll ace it, don't worry.
Aiyana:
Good luck Wyatt. I have an extended essay due in two days, and I haven't even started.
Typing...
:'-(
Me:
How's everyone?
Ji-Hun:
Typing...
Good.
Aiyana:
Typing...
Stressed.
Wyatt:
Typing...
Same as Aiyana.
I spent the next hour talking with them before I logged out then shut down my laptop, and put it away. I tried to sleep, but I spent the next thirty minutes rolling on my bed as I tried to figure out how I was going to talk to Felix tomorrow.