Move, Lily, please.My mind was crying out to my body to react, but I was frozen, like prey caught in a predator's sights. "And why would you do that?" I asked, though I didn't want to hear the answer.
"Because I've seen that you're no longer talking to Kyle,"he said, his voice taking on a satisfied tone. "And I definitely want to take advantage of that."
What? Was he serious?
The audacity of it broke through some of my paralysis, replacing fear with anger. "What makes you think I would give you a chance?" I said, moving myself to face him.
He laughed, "We'll see, Lily. We'll see."
I was about to tell him exactly where he could shove his confidence when Brandy burst through the classroom door and threw herself into my arms. "Finallyyyy, you have time for me! You seem to be running away from me since you started working at the hospital."
She hugged me tightly, making me wonder which parts of her personality were genuine and which were performance. Oliver took that opportunity to slip away silently, the same way he'd appeared.
I watched him vanish down the hallway, and I started thinking if this way of Oliver's acting was new, or if maybe it had happened before and I'd just been too naive to recognize he was an asshole. Either way, Oliver had just made his intentions clear. He was watching me, waiting for an opportunity. And I had no idea how to prepare for what that meant.
I decided to focus more on Brandy, who gestured for me to follow her, so I started walking. We went to her locker to drop off some books, and then she looked at me, as if she was waiting for an excuse from me, so I finally replied, "Sorry, I've been too busy. The days just fly by."
And it was true. Between volunteering at the hospital, trying to spend as much time with my family as possible, trying to catch up on classes, and most of all, sleeping and resting, I've barely had time to pay attention to people who represent nothing to my real future.
"I think there is something more," Brandy replied with awicked smile while closing her locker. "I need you to tell me what's going on between you and that popular hottie who only has eyes for you."
"I don't know what you're talking about." I know she was referring to my situation with Kyle, but I had no intention of telling her how I felt right now. My priority was to get as much information out of her as possible, not to talk about me.
But clearly, she wasn’t going to let it go.
"Of course you do. I'm talking about Kyle," she said a little loudly, making me look around to see if anyone had heard as if I were an actual teenager with a secret.
"Keep your voice down, Brandy," I replied as I signaled for us to leave the school and start walking. "What you're saying doesn't make sense. There's absolutely nothing happening between us."
"You're as naive as ever, Lily. You went from being together practically every day to staring at each other in the hallways. From being the happiest and most loving couple in the entire school, to being two strangers from one moment to the next. It's as if the accident destroyed the love you had for each other."
She was right. In our original timeline, Kyle and I would take advantage of any free moment to be together. It was as if we didn't want to be apart because physically we couldn't. Now we hadn't even gotten close for a single day, and apparently, people were starting to notice.
We continued walking until we reached a cafeteria near the school. In the old days, this was our place to catch up on everything that was happening. Now that I was back, it hadn't even occurred to me to go back here.
When we sat down, Brandy continued talking about all the gossip she had heard in recent days. It was as if she realized I wasn't going to give her much information, so she decided totalk about everything else instead. The good thing about her was that I didn't have to push her too hard to get her to say all the things that were on her mind. I don't know why I hadn't thought of using her for my plan before.
The waitress came to take our order, and Brandy took the opportunity to return to the original topic. "It's clear something happened between you. And I know it was Kyle's fault because he still sees you as if you're the sky while you try to ignore his existence."
"I think you're exaggerating. Maybe we're just too focused on our problems and homework."
"I don't believe it, and I don't want you to think I'm stupid. Oliver told me he saw you sneaking off to church after work the other day. What have you been doing there? Did he do something to you that you didn't want him to do? Or did he cheat on you with someone?"
So Oliver was following me after all, enough to see me leave with Kyle after work the other day. Interesting. Brandy had just inadvertently given me valuable information. And not only that. She had just confirmed that she and Oliver were friends. I decided to push her by mentioning him to see how close they were. "Oliver? Are you talking to him?"
"Of course I am, you know we're technically 'friends,'" she said, making quotation marks with her fingers. "The poor friend-zoned guy doesn't realize I'm just using him for all my whims and gossip, and I'm really not interested in him at all."
"I don't know," I replied doubtfully. "I don't think your friendship with him makes much sense. You should be more careful with him."
"Relax, Lily. You're always so boring and always doing things the easy way. Everything's fine, I've got him under control."
I was surprised by how suddenly she became defensive.Brandy was definitely hiding something. "And what about my brother?"
Our milkshakes arrived, and Brandy focused on hers, taking a big sip and then leaning back on her chair. I took the opportunity to observe everything around me, how the same customers were coming, how this place had the same aroma I remembered, how everything came back to me as if I had never grown up. These were the small details that shocked me the most about returning to the past: how everything felt so familiar.
I couldn't believe that at some point, everything was going to fall apart until I was a stranger in my own body.
"What's wrong with him?" Brandy finally asked.
