I’m finally revisiting the characters from The River City Chronicles nine years after their original timeline. I’ll be running the series weekly here on my blog, and then will release it in book form at the end of the run. Hope you enjoy catching up with all your faves and all their new secrets!
Today, Marissa reaches out to Ainsley, who finds herself tongue tied on text…
< Read Chapter Fourteen | Read Chapter Sixteen >
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Chapter Fifteen
Bzz bzz
Bzz bzz.
Ainsley cracked open one eye, blearily surveying her surroundings. Early morning sunlight filtered through her single dorm window, tinged green by the needles of the redwood tree that grew close enough to the dorm that she could almost touch it.
She fixed on the digital clock, a gift from her father. Its rainbow letters a tacit acceptance of her status as a… and her father never could quite say it without a stutter… les-bee-an.
Closing her eyes, she settled back into the goose down pillow and pulled her silk sheets up over her shoulders. It was only 7:30 AM, she had no classes until the next day, and she wasn’t on-shift until the evening. She could indulge herself and sleep in a bit.
Bzz bzz.
“Sshi bal.” She thrust the covers away from her and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Who was disturbing her on a perfectly lazy Sunday morning? And before most decent folk had even had their first cup of coffee?
Her phone was on her desk, in the midst of a snowbank of crumpled off-white drawing paper, the results of her not-so-fruitful return to art the evening before. Nothing she’d sketched had felt right. Nothing captured her attention. Except for one thing.
Bzz bzz.
“All right already.” She pushed herself up and managed three wobbly steps to her desk chair. Slumping down into it with the lack of grace she normally reserved for falling into bed after a long study session, she snatched the phone and stared at it intently.
Hello. Is this Ainsley?
The message tag said “Unknown.”
Maybe. Who’s asking?
She didn’t normally respond to unknown texters, but she was already suitably annoyed at being dragged out of bed early, and she wanted to direct her anger at someone. A perfect stranger would be, well, perfect.
Marissa. We met at Ragazzi the other night.
Ainsley’s heart stopped. Well, maybe not like Heartstopper stopped. But it definitely did this weird thumpy thing in her chest, and her annoyance evaporated.
Hey Marissa… great to hear from you—
Delete. Too cheerful, especially for early on a Sunday morning.
I was just thinking about you—
Delete. Too thirsty. Maybe?
‘sup.
She hit send before she could second guess herself a third time. Then immediately regretted it. “’Sup? What am I? Ten?”
She stared anxiously at the screen for some sign that she hadn’t just screwed things up with the beautiful, funny girl she’d met the other night, and fallen quickly in like with. Enough to scribble her number down on a napkin.
…
“Come on.” She thrummed her fingers on the desk.
…
“Seriously?” What, was she typing out a novel?
While she waited, she swept the crumpled attempts at art into her wastebasket, which was already half full of soda cans, pencil shavings, and crumpled up Kleenex.
Bzz bzz.
She snatched up the phone again.
-I know that it’s late notice. Are you free this afternoon? I could really use a friend.-
Ainsley frowned. A friend? Crap. Still, it was a start. And she did happen to be free, at least until six o’clock.
-Sure. Where and when?-
-Ragazzi. 1 PM. I’ll explain when you get here.-
Ainsley bit her lip. Stranger and stranger. She liked a little mystery. But why Ragazzi?
-It’s a date. See you then.-
Again, the insta-regret. Why’d I have to say it was a date? What if she doesn’t like me like that?
A smiley face popped up.
What does that mean? Is she happy I said date? Or does she think I’m being silly? Ainsley sighed. Well, done was done.
She set down her phone. The one piece of art she’d been satisfied with, out of all the previous night’s endeavors, lay before her on the now-empty desk, next to the neat set of colored pencils.
Marissa’s bright eyes and smile stared back at her.
#
A smiley? Seriously? What was I thinking? But done was done. Ainsley probably thought she was a lunatic.
Marissa ended the call and collapsed against the hard seat-back of her dining nook chair. She’d gotten the set at that huge Scandinavian furniture store in West Sac, and it had looked perfect in the store, all light wood and sharp, modern, no-nonsense Swedish angles. A kichentablesven, or something similar. But in her little apartment, it took up the whole nook, like one of those fish that grew to fill its aquarium, making her squeeze around it to get into the tiny galley kitchen. The wood was cold and unyielding against her back.
She stared at the crumpled Ragazzi napkin. Why did I text her?
She hadn’t meant to. But she’d been depressed about Ben, and when she’d pulled the note with Ainsley’s number out of her pocket, something warm and comforting had filled her. She’d picked up her phone and sent the message without really thinking it through.
Done is done, alright. And truth be told, it would be nice to have her new… friend?… there as a buffer. She loved her nonna dearly, but Carmelina, like the table, tended to suck up all the space in the room.
Friend?
Gio would be there too, presumably. It might get awkward.
Life was an imperfect game, and sometimes she felt like she didn’t even have all the pieces.
Or all my marbles. She laughed ruefully.
Marissa tucked the note back into her jacket pocket, and went to take herself a long, hot shower.
< Read Chapter Fourteen | Read Chapter Sixteen >
Like what you read? if you haven’t tried it yet, check out book one, The River City Chronicles, here.