ryan

She looked so pretty today, dressed in warm tones and dainty trinkets. However, the fatigue on her face was very clear. I was exhausted as well. We have been working on the presentation all day. 

"I don't understand how you're still so focused," I told her as she typed away on the computer.

"And I'm surprised that you haven't suggested that we take a break yet," she said.

"Let's call it a day, Isa. I'm feeling so drained out. We can continue tomorrow." 

"Yeah. I've got plans for tomorrow, but we can get together on a weekday after school?" she suggested.

"Monday sound good?" I asked her, not entirely sure as to why I was determined on planning out our next meet-up.

Just then, her phone started ringing. "Any day other than Monday," she said apologetically and excused herself to take the call.

I left the study in order to give her some privacy and walked to my room upon remembering something. By the time I returned to the study, holding a familiar sweater in my hand, Isa was already packing her bag.

"Hey, sorry about that. I didn't realise that it was already 7:30. Time flew, right. Anyways, I better head home now."

"Yeah. Here," I said, handing her the sweater.

She looked at it and after recognising the familiar garment, she tried to figure out how I ended up with it . I answered her thoughts, "Leon gave it to me so that I could give it to you."

"Oh, he didn't have to," she said. I laughed at that while she looked at me questioningly.

"I just pictured Leon in a tiny white sweater," I told her and she smiled at my imagination. "It would have been of no use to him. You keep it."

Once all of her things were packed, we headed out of the room.

As we walked downstairs, I saw my mum baking in the kitchen whilst singing. I smiled at the sight and looked at Isa; she too held an expression of awe on her face. 

"Leaving already?" Mum asked Isa upon noticing her bag.

"Yes, Mrs. Adler. Thank you for having me. Your house was wonderful."

"My son too, I hope. You should stay for dinner. I won't scare you with chicken this time," mum joked.

"I would love to but my mother just asked me to come back home," she politely declined the offer.

"Well then, maybe another time. It was lovely to meet you. Keep visiting."

Isa smiled, not giving an answer. We both left the house and I led her towards the gate.

"So, I'll leave now," she told me.

"Are you going to walk home?" I asked, noticing the absence of a car. When she nodded, another question left my lips, "Where do you live?"

"Lisbon Street."

"It will take you a whole hour to get there."

"I'm aware."

"Let me drop you."

"It's fine. I like walking."

"Oh, don't be stubborn. I can't let you walk all the way to Lisbon street when the sun has already set. It's not safe."

"I thought you were grounded," she reminded me.

"I'm sure that my mum wouldn't mind," I told her, hating the fact that I sounded like a 7 year old.

"Okay then," she finally accepted my offer to drop her.

"Wait here, I'll go get the car." I said and went back to the garage.

I sent my mum a quick text, informing her that I was going to drop Isa. She replied with two winking emojis and I rolled my eyes in response. 

To be completely honest, I have no idea why I offered to take Isa home. Usually, I'm least bothered of where people ended up as the night ceased. I've never given anyone a ride in my car other than Leon. But now that I think of it, he just invited himself everywhere and made me his go-to driver for whatever event we ended up at. 

After Isa entered the car and put her location on the car's GPS, we rode off in silence. The silence started to get very heavy so I played some music through the car's speakers. This seemed to have relaxed Isa too.

"Why were you grounded?" she asked me after a couple of minutes on the road. "Actually, nevermind that. You don't have to answer. Sorry for asking."

"Chill, you don't have to apologise for everything," I told her. She said 'sorry' a lot, and for the smallest of things; even when there was no reason.

"Bad habit, sorr- oops," she winced and I laughed, to put her at ease.

"My friends convinced me that it was a good idea to spray paint our neighbour's garage and my mum found out. So, she grounded me. I mean, what else can she do right?" I told her. 

"Was it because of peer pressure?" she asked me. It took a minute to understand what she was referring to but I shook my head in reply upon realising. 

"Not really, no. Also, the neighbour had it coming." 

The guy had been cheating on his wife for months and was extremely lousy when it came to covering his tracks. 'an affair with your kid's teacher? have some shame ' That was what we sprayed on his garage. When his wife saw this, she was furious and told him that she wanted a divorce.

The guy obviously had to show his frustration somewhere. He went and told my mum about this. I know, it is stupid. My mum knew what he did and was happy that I outed his secret. However, to get rid of him, she had to 'ground' me.

"That's so sad. I hope your neighbour and her kid are fine. I can't believe that such people actually exist and have the audacity to be angry on someone else for their mistakes," she said after. 

"The world is filled with such people, Isa. Even in our school. Did you hear about how Jason saw Sofia kissing Tyler by the football field?" I said, sounding like a 13 year old teenage girl.

She had a small pout on her face upon hearing that so I decided to change the topic. We crossed an ice cream store not too long ago so I asked her, "What's your favourite ice cream flavour?"

"Hm? Oh, it's vanilla. I know, basic. " 

"And why do you like it?"

"It goes well with everything," she answered me after a moment of thinking. "What about you? Favourite flavour?"

"I'm not a fan of desserts. My mum on the other hand, loves them. She started baking too, recently," I told her.

"I've always wanted to try out baking," she said. "It looks like so much fun but is also very complicated."

"Maybe one day. Is this your place?" I asked after stopping at the point where Google showed a red pin. 

The words 'your destination has arrived' flashed on the screen when she answered me with a yes. She unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of my car. Before closing the door shut, she thanked me one last time.

"Thank you for the pasta. And your study was a lovely place to work at."

I smiled as she waved a 'bye' to the car as I rode off past her.

It was lovely to have you, I wanted to say.

~⨯~

kind of a boring chapter ahah but next one's going to
be fun, i promise! stick around :)