4. Laila #2
If her brown skin would have allowed it, Cass would be red in the face from our teasing.
A little over a year ago Cass went on a solo trip to Mexico and came back with a fine ass boyfriend, some straight out of a romance movie shit.
Cyrus is a pilot and they were long distance for over a year and then he moved here to Rosewood for her.
It surprised the hell out of all of us because Cass and spontaneous don’t usually go together, but Cyrus brings out something in her that gives her the safety to be impulsive.
“I hate all of you,” Cass says laughing.
“Notice how she couldn’t even deny it,” Reagan chimes in and we all laugh.
“Yeah, yeah whatever. I’ll see y’all on Monday,” Cass replies, raising her hand in goodbye.
I stay a little bit longer and work on editing the pictures I took earlier in the day and planning out posts for all our social media accounts. I turn up the music in my headphones and get lost in work. By the time I look up again, the sun has set and my eyes burn from staring at a screen so long.
Shit.
I didn't mean to lose track of time like that.
I close my laptop and pack my things to leave.
I put my snow boots and coat back on and head out of the office, locking the door behind me.
As I step off the elevator and out into the cold night air my phone starts to ring.
I pull it out of my pocket and check to see who it is.
Mom
With a sigh, I swipe my finger across the screen to answer the call as I walk to the train station. “Hello?”
“You don’t know how to pick up a phone and call your mother anymore?”
I let out a long sigh. “I’ve had a lot going on mom, I wasn’t doing it on purpose.”
“Well I was just calling to check in on you. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing good. I’m on my way home from work right now.”
“That’s good to hear,” my mom replies.
The line goes silent for a few moments as I wait for her to say the real reason why she’s calling me. I know my mother and unfortunately for me I also know that these calls are never just a casual check in.
“Listen, I need to borrow some money until next week, just for some necessities.”
And there it is. I roll my eyes, frustrated but not surprised because I can’t remember the last time my mom called me and didn’t ask me for something.
“What happened to the money that I just gave you a few weeks ago?”
“I told you my car was in the shop and I needed some help with the repairs.”
She had said that. And the time before that it was groceries and the time before that it was because the washing machine was broken. It’s always something.
I make it to my train station and walk down the stairs. I pull my card from my coat pocket and tap it on the scanner to unlock the turnstiles.
“How much do you need?” I ask flatly.
“Just a hundred dollars. Money is a little tight right now and I -”
I don’t bother to listen to the rest of her sentences. Instead I pull the phone away from my face and open my online banking app. I type in the amount that she asked for and press the button to send the money to her.
“I sent it but I gotta go, my train is here.”
It wasn’t, but now that she said the real reason she called me, there was nothing else I needed to say to my mom.
“Okay thank you, I love you,” she replies sweetly.
I end the call, close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.
The automated voice on the intercom alerts of a train approaching.
I take three more deep breaths and open my eyes to my train slowly riding into the station until it finally stops and the doors open.
I step onto the train and opt to stand instead of sitting between people.
The train is decently full but since I worked later than I meant to, I missed the evening rush.
The automated voice comes over the intercom again to alert that the doors are closing.
A few seconds later, the doors close and the train pulls away from the station with a jolt.
All of the exhaustion of working all day hits me on my commute home.
I eat dinner and then head to my bathroom to take a shower.
The hot droplets of water hitting my skin as I step into the shower feel heavenly.
So much so that for a while I just stand there and enjoy the warmth and calm that the water pouring off of my skin brings.
After my shower I put on some pajamas and get into bed.
I turn on my tv and set the volume low to act as background noise while I’m awake and to help me fall asleep.
Though tonight is a night that I know sleep won’t evade me because my eyes are already heavy while I open Instagram to do my nighttime scroll.
Stories is where I usually start scrolling, and once I get bored of that I switch to the actual timeline to see the posts of the people I follow.
I scroll aimlessly until one post in particular catches my eye, or rather less the post and more who posted it.
It's a picture of the city at night, darkness in direct contrast with the lights of buildings and cars and clearly captured from many stories above the ground and a simple caption that just says ‘home’.
Sonny followed me back on Instagram the day after we ran into each other and liked the most recent picture that I had posted.
With everything going on with life and work I haven’t thought much about him and I haven’t even told Zara about running into him again.
Hesitantly, I click on his handle to go to his profile.
He doesn’t post often, once a month at most but frequently less often than that.
A throwback picture of toddler Sonny with his mom that he posted for Mother’s Day a few years ago, brings a smile to my face.
His mother is stunning and Sonny is in her arms with one of those big cheesy grins that kids make when they’re really happy.
My eyes have gotten heavier and slowly without me noticing I slip into slumber, my phone falling onto the bed next to me.