Skinny • Book 1 In The Reality Series

Katy

Looking down at my cellphone where the time was prominently displayed, a sigh left my lips.

"Where are you?" I whispered, scanning the sea of couples engaging in near pornographic levels of PDA.

Almost every girl that passed was toting some life sized variation of a stuffed animal. In the other hand was her boyfriend's and under his arm a heart shaped box of chocolates.

It was an unspoken code.

A norm so ingrained it was second nature.

I knew Calum wouldn't want chocolate though so I'd gotten him something else. Much like his Christmas present it was a notebook but within its pages was our story.

Narrated by my, decorated with trinkets of our time together, every movie ticket, a ripped up corner of wrapping paper, notes he'd written me and unspoken thoughts of him.

It was the most intimate thing I'd ever created, holding the book felt like a physical representation of the love I held within me for the small boy every day.

It'd taken me weeks to complete. I'd started before Christmas and spent the entirety of the night before finishing it.

But now, at 7:02 three minutes before the final bell, he was nowhere to be found.

I wondered at first if he was ditching however quickly dismissed the idea, knowing that our first Valentine's Day together was not an occasion my Calum would forgo.

My mind then wandered like a blind man through the city unassisted stopping at every corner to conjure up one horror story after another; each more horrific then the last until I'd convinced myself that he was dead.

My throat burning as my breathing increased in breaths per second I called him, twice but he didn't answer.

Tears rolling down my cheeks I thought of going for Michael or Sierra but they were both in class already, everyone was, the hallways were empty and I was alone.

My fear of a detention moving my legs for me sense my rational brain was too negatively affected to do so j shuffled along the lonely hallway to class.

My heart falling lower and lower into my stomach with each passing second displayed prominently on the oversized wall clock above the door.

It was relief I felt first, when he burst through the door. His hair soaked and his clothes rain splattered. A feeling of glee and calmness ebbing through me like the gentle splash of high tide touching sand not yet moistened.

However, as it became abundantly clear that I, Oppositely was not on his mind, in fact quite the opposite, he'd forgotten about me and the holiday which I'd been counting down the days towards, I realized that I was angry.

I could feel my brow furrowed. Becoming aware of myself I quickly released the crumpled piece of paper I held balled up in my fist.

My vision blurring with tears I cursed myself for being such a stereotypical teenage girl. It was just Valentine's Day, he hadn't forgotten our wedding or the birth of our child, but still my anguish was immediate, painful, and even in my own self deprecating eyes, valid.

He'd forgotten about Valentine's Day and by default forgotten about me. And in that moment I felt myself rethinking everything. I was mad. Not irritated, not annoyed, seriously, seriously pissed, and so for the first time in my school career I rose from my seat and not bothering to collect my things, started out of the room.

"Katy!" Miss Pinicle called after me, "Where are you going?"

Unable to form words around the ball of emotion in my throat I looked at her pointedly and instantaneously her demeanor changed.

Her face changing from one of superiority to one of concern, she nodded quickly, and taking that as permission enough, I left the room, brushing into Calum as I passed causing him to teeter back onto his opposite foot to maintain his balance.

Immediately I became conscious of my weight, and his. I could feel every eye on me, hear every snicker, sense my skin tingling as I became very aware of just how warm the room was and then I was in the bathroom, dry heaving in the first stall until a string of clear liquid spilled through my lips since not a morsel of food had passed my lips in three days.