Decisions and Mayhem | ✓

Chapter 14

"Why are we here? Why are you doing this to me?" I asked, making Wyatt laugh as he looked through the hot-topic t-shirts on the rack in front of him. We were at the local mall. My mum had sent both of us out to get some stationery and groceries, but Wyatt had gotten preoccupied with finding new additions to his wardrobe.

"How does this look?" I heard him ask, making me look up from my phone's screen to find him holding up a t-shirt to his chest. I frowned, rolling my eyes before looking back down at my phone. All the shirts were the same — black. The only difference was the lame quote prints they had at the front.

"They're all the same, just pick one already," I sighed, listening to Wyatt hum to himself as he turned towards the mirror at the corner. Despite my piece of advice Wyatt ended up keeping us at the store for half an hour more before he finally decided on some band t-shirts. He paid at the counter, and we left the store right after. Wyatt then dragged me to the next store that caught his interest, and I watched him be just as indecisive about the exact same pair of jeans but in a different color. When he was done we headed to the food court to get something to eat. We also still had to go to Save on Foods to get groceries.

I watched Wyatt eat in the odd manner he usually did. Instead of eating the burger as a whole, he took it apart and ate the parts piece by piece. It was interesting to watch.

"What are you looking at?" The sound of his voice made me blink, and I felt my face warm up when I realized I had been caught staring. I muttered an apology, looking down at my own burger as Wyatt laughed. The food court was noisy, so his laughter blended in with the background. We finished our food without saying anything else to each other, and then we left the mall before stopping at the grocery store for a couple of things.

As Wyatt tried to figure out what type of pepper my mother wanted us to buy, I looked through my phone, groaning when I realized David hadn't replied to the message I had sent him earlier in the morning.

Message to: David.

Come on David, answer me.

Why are you ignoring me, did something happen?

I typed, looking down at the message. I bit my bottom lip, thinking about Tim's odd breakdown the other day when I had refused to walk home with him. I thought about it for a while, loosely putting two and two together.

Does this have anything to do with Tim?

@9:45 AM.

I added to the text box before pressing send. I let out a sigh, putting my phone away in my pocket before looking around for Wyatt who had wandered away with the trolley. It didn't take long to find his head of purplish-blue hair in the rows of vegetables. He was in the spice aisle, still trying to figure out what kind of peppers my mother needed. I headed over to him, standing beside him before taking a nylon bag and filling it with a few yellow peppers.

"She's not making anything strong tonight, so it's yellow peppers," I said, with a smile as I watched as Wyatt let out a small 'oh' before nodding at my words and thanking me. I looked away as I tied the bag and tossed it into the trolley. I wasn't sure why I was feeling flustered. Wyatt had just thanked me. There was nothing special about it.

We left the grocery store and I sat up front with Wyatt in his car. I was on my phone as he drove home, still checking if David had replied — he hadn't. What is wrong with him? I wondered as a frown formed on my face. My eyes then suddenly went wide when I saw I notification drop down, but my frown returned when I saw who it was from. I groaned, making Wyatt turn over to me briefly before returning his gaze to the road up ahead.

"Did something happen?" he asked.

"Nothing. It's nothing," I said, closing the notification before typing up another message to David.

Message to: David.

Look, just reply when you can, okay?

This is odd. I'm not sure why you're doing this. It has something to do with Tim, right?

@10:02 AM.

I pressed send before putting my phone away again in order not to lose my mind by obsessively drawing down the screen and refreshing my notifications every minute. I turned my gaze to Wyatt, smiling when I realized he was humming along to the song playing on the radio.

"How are you?" I asked, making him turn to me briefly with a look of surprise — it was kind of cute. I didn't even bother scolding myself for thinking along that line. The way Wyatt behaved was cute, it was a fact.

"I'm doing fine," he said, returning his attention back to the road ahead. It was Saturday morning so there weren't many cars on the road yet. "I am doing some community service with other church members tomorrow, so that nice," he added, making me nod.

Wyatt wasn't talking about a regular church. He and his dad were Luciferins, a subset group of modern Satanists. They had a hard time looking for a Luciferin community when they first moved, but they had eventually found a small club-like community of different kinds of Satanists about two months ago. My mum or anyone for that matter didn't talk about it much. Wyatt and his dad just did their thing.

"Oh, that's great," I muttered, resting my head on the car seat's headrest as I looked out the window. Wyatt had driven into our street and was now slowing down as he approached the duplex we lived in.

"What about you?" he asked, making me turn my head to him again. "How did your tests go? Is Jay still bothering you?" he added as he made to drive the car into our home's driveway.

"My tests were fine," I said before letting out a sigh. "And Jay's still — well, Jay."

Wyatt laughed as he turned the car's engine off. "He's a bit obsessed with you, isn't he?"

"That's a bit of an understatement," I found myself saying, making Wyatt laugh. I soon found myself chuckling too, and we just sat in on our seats in the car in silence when our laughter finally died down.

"Do you know what you should do?" Wyatt asked with a wide grin, making me shake my head. My heartbeat quickened a bit. It was nice to see this friendly and bright version of Wyatt. I had been a bit puzzled and thrown off when he was closed off and douchey to me and the rest of my siblings.

"Just send him a link to a porn video — a loud one. Like, with no explanation at all. Also, use a link shortener so he can't tell what the link leads to from the URL until it's too late," Wyatt said, making my eyes grow wide with shock. Well then.

"That's pure evil," I stated plainly, making Wyatt laugh a bit before shrugging.

"It's also an effective way of getting him to leave you alone. He will be so shocked out of his mind that he'll give you a few days of peace," Wyatt said, rearranging the bangs of his hair while looking at himself in the driver's mirror. I stared at him for a bit, thinking over his advice. As I was staring, I also noticed his roots were starting to show, and the brown made an interesting contrast with the purplish-blue.

"Have you — have you done that before?" I asked, and Wyatt just chucked before shrugging and tweaking the mirror back to its original position.

"Maybe — okay, I have," he laughed before opening the door of the driver's seat and getting down from the car. I got down too, picking up some of the grocery bags from the trunk of the vehicle before following Wyatt inside the house. I dropped the bags I had brought in on the counter in the kitchen before I headed upstairs to my room. When I was alone in my bed I stared at the screen of my phone, wondering if I should go through with what Wyatt had suggested.

I took a deep breath, searching up something on the Bing video search before getting a new URL from a link shortener site. I then copied and pasted it into the text box and pressed send. After just a minute or so there were blue checkmarks that showed me Jay had 'read' my message, but there was no reply.

I guess it worked. I thought before tossing my phone aside and letting out a sigh of temporary relief.

Now, if only I could figure out why David was avoiding me. That would be great.