Between Us

Chapter 20

I texted Sai the next morning about how she was feeling after being so drunk she had fainted—and how her dad had taken it. When I had dropped her off, his face was set in stone, wrinkles apparent without even moving a muscle. Though he hadn't said a word to me, I could tell just with the way he grasped her to his side and checked her over with knitted brows that he was more worried than he let on.

There was no response from her.

I blew out a sigh. Why was everyone acting so weird? To get my mind off of Sai, I watched a Facebook video of Caden and his bandmates singing. Even though he had shut me down in the coldest way possible, there was still something nagging at me. I wanted to find out more about him. I didn't know him but Paris did, so I went onto Facebook and to her friends' list.

And there he was.

He didn't have any personal posts, though Paris did. There were videos of him singing and strumming an acoustic guitar but none of them lasted very long.

Even still, they were beautiful.

The ones posted sounded sad. The one I'd heard with Sai and Paris was upbeat—definitely a punk-pop song? I blew out a deep breath and put my phone into my pocket. I brought out my diary from my satchel and wrote down the events of last night.

Why is Caden so confusing? And why am I so annoying? Why do I keep bumping into him and doing the exact opposite of the tips he'd given me? Am I that unteachable?

"You'll be okay alone?" My dad asked, looking at the rearview mirror.

I shut my diary with a slam and shoved it back into my bag. "I'll be fine. I went to the club last night by myself, didn't I?"

"That's because we knew you were going for Sai."

"Sid," my mom hissed before turning in her seat to look at me. "We trust you. You're old enough."

"Sometimes I think older than you," I joked, wanting to ease the atmosphere. That got a chuckle from them and I relaxed.

"We won't be at their house for long but let us know if you want a ride home."

"Thanks, dad. The store shouldn't be too far from home. I'll just walk." The guitar store was a twenty-minute walk, but I needed the exercise. Besides, honestly, I didn't want to rely on my parents so much when I was about to go to a real-physical college. I was twenty-three. I needed to be a little more independent.

Even though the thought scared me. But what better start than the guitar store to buy a pick for my enemy? Not exactly my enemy, but he was doing a pretty good job of pushing me away at every turn. I wanted to stay away, but most of the time I was saying and doing some pretty dumb stuff. Maybe, my genius mind had told me that morning before going to church, I could buy him a guitar pick as a 'thank you for helping me even though things failed' combined with a 'sorry for always prying' gift.

"Bye," I said, getting out of the car and waving to them, clutching the straps of my satchel across my chest tighter. I had come prepared. It was a sunny day and I tilted my head up toward the blazing beam of light, closing my eyes. I was going to make the most of it by being a good neighbour.

Stay away, stay away, one part of my mind told me whenever I thought about thanking Caden or even speaking to him. The other part genuinely wanted to know why he was so guarded. I'd only seen guys like him existing in books.

Walking toward the small store with little music trinkets on display, I pushed open the glass door, the bell from above chiming, signalling to the owner.

There was no owner in sight, the counter and store empty, save for the music floating from the speakers above. The shelves holding the vinyl were spaced apart though there wasn't much space in such a small store. This place didn't just have guitars, either.