CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

blindspot



i struggled to recuperate after a dream like that, where i feel like i was in an alternate universe or a fluid plane of existence that is constantly traveling through different ones. grounding back into this one and moving my now-normal fingers was disorienting to say the least. i rolled out of bed and stumbled out of the room.

as i brushed my teeth, i went through the five stages of grief. i experienced this every time i had a dream as day-altering as this one. no one should expect me to go back to normal life after that abnormality.

mom walked in just in time to not get thrown off the ground from the humongous knot of hair sitting on my head. it took me five minutes to brush out the damn thing that looked like a two year old tried to braid it. i must have been wrestling with myself all night.

"good morning-- almost noon! you haven't slept this long since you were in the womb," said mom.

"the declaration of independence really does that to ya." i gave her a hug, appreciating the fact that she was herself and not one of the old men that signed it.

"speaking of freedom...," she smiled, waiting for me to catch on.

"what do you mean?"

"well the declaration... gave us freedom--"

"no! what are you hinting at, mom," i urged.

"it's saturday!" she cheered. "you're not grounded anymore!"

"oh, yeah! i forgot about that. and my phone," i said. "i've been living like i could be around to sign the declaration without it. kind of nice, honestly."

"please take it back, y/n. the constant vibrations of the notifications were very annoying when i was trying to sleep last night."

"right, so it's in your room?" i said hurriedly.

she nodded and i was out the door. then she called down the hallway, "what happened to you enjoying the electronic celibacy?"

the answer to that was that if i was getting so many notifications, that meant they were either from mrs fennel tormenting the class from her evil, gothic castle in the tropics of aruba, or from my favorite people. obviously, they couldn't be from jordyn. and i would be surprised if walker texted more than two words at a time. i would've bet good money that maeve was reaching out. she'd always been good with remembering dates she looked forward to, this one being when we could legally hang out with each other. and i had a lot to tell her.

when i tapped the phone's screen, i was met with a plethora of banners, the latest from five minutes ago.

(read it from bottom up like a notification center)

maeve -- 11:25 AM rise and shine! rise and shine! yippeee yippeee woohoo!!! welcome back to earth! you've gotten so bald and green!

maeve -- 10:59 AM **pookie i miss my poopie

maeve -- 10:42 AM and congrats on being a free woman!

maeve -- 10:40 AM how was it with walker last night? did you guys kiss? propose to one another? anywayssss, i'm dying to know... absence makes the heart grow fonder (i saw you less than 24 hours ago) it's been a year daddy heyyy



i opened the notification and began typing when the reluctance to tap each and every letter out of the night before grew. lazy, i simply texted:



you helloooo i missed you too

maeve she's back!!! and hopefully better than ever

you i am because i can finally talk to my bff i have to catch you up on last night

maeve correctamundo are you thinking what i'm thinking?

you that we meet at the bagel shop and have our usual + a side of piping hot tea?

maeve so hot it sounds like ariana grande?

you yes. so hot, it's robert pattinson, maeve bishop.

maeve can't wait to burn my tongue with that tea cuz i'm sipping it right away. call me queen elizabeth. call me maevespeare.

you lololol i'll be there in twenty? right next to jeffry with the jeans?

maeve you know it ;)



˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

"he gave you his hoodie?" shrieked maeve. "you're basically married!"

"yea! but then i had to leave it there because of the rain... which we walked in." i was hesitant because no sane person would have gone out in that weather, but then again, maeve was the opposite of sane. she's fun. she would have done that in a heartbeat.

i told her and jeffry every detail of that adventure. i had no one from our school to worry about listening in. the shop was quiet and the workers had their own gossip to tell each other. in fact, at some points maeve and i had eavesdropping intermissions in our conversation, where we could easily hear the news of why the newest worker, the one who i didn't recognize, quit. apparently, she was sick of the crowds of teenagers that flooded the place when walker was seen here. whoopsie daisy.

"so they gave up, i guess?" said maeve before continuing our chat.

"must've." i shrugged. i couldn't take paparazzi of any kind seriously. that shit should be illegal. "anyway, my mom and dad believed our lie."

"where were you gonna go again?"

"oh yeah-- i got out of the house by saying i needed to apologize to my aunt, so jorydn's," i said. like black ink poured across a book, i could no longer read maeve's expression. it visibly shifted, but to something i didn't know. her eyes slightly widened, but her mouth unmoving. it could have been shock or relief or revelation or embarrassment. "what's up?"

"d'ah...nothing... just realized i never corrected that unforgivable grammatical error in my latest chapter of blood red desire, my edward fic," she babbled. "can you believe i wrote 'she wished she was' and not 'she wished she were'?"

"that is so unlike you," i responded, trying to ignore the secrecy in her untidy tone.

"right? i guess i've just been distracted recently... you know, cause of ap world and stuff." she hesitated, noticing the way my eyes were slightly squinted. "so have you read the recent chapter of blood red?"

"yeah. it was so good! i loved the part when she was sent to prison for trying to turn bella human again so she could kill her!"

"edward would still choose me over bella, right? even if he's not able to talk to me," she asked. now that was a weird question. even for maeve. i raised a mental eyebrow. suspicion was growing in me with every odd statement she made. the only reason i could think of why she would say such a pimple of a thing was because there was some hidden message i needed to pop out.

"you, meaning the reader right?"

"yeah. that's what i meant." her lack of acting skills were shining through.

"maeve elizabeth bishop, what are you hiding?"

"i'm not hiding anything!" she claimed.

though that was more convincing, i wasn't about to just move on. i put the honors english class in me to good use and started analyzing what she could have meant under the mask of being a delusional teenage girl.

i was sure bella and edward were aliases for people we knew. and she was obviously hiding something, so someone she was afraid of mentioning aloud to me. i considered the limited pool of suspects that we're both close with or know a lot about.

i realized i would need to really lock in when i looked psychotic zoning out. "i'm gonna go use the bathroom."

standing in front of the mirror, i thought about how she was viewing bella as an obstacle in some competition. who would be competition to her, and why? my eyes started to burn and i finally blinked. i looked back at myself. and then i thought, what if i was the competition? the only way that would be true is if... she liked walker too. what else would she need to hide from me?

i rushed back to the booth. once i sat, i just blurted it out. "am i bella? is walker edward?"

she was speechless. but not in a guilty way, more of a "what the fuck are you saying?" type of way. "you've got it all wrong. i don't want to kill you, if that's what you're asking. and if i did, it wouldn't be over a boy, it would be, i don't know... because you found out something you weren't supposed to."

"well that was kinda shady earlier. is there something i'm not supposed to know?"

she crossed her arms. i could feel her sneaker tapping on the floorboards. "...no. no, crazy woman, there isn't."



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thank you for reading chapter 31!