Kendall Whitman - regular and underlined

Chapter 34: 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝔂 𝓐𝔀𝓪𝔂 𝓕𝓻𝓸𝓶 𝓜𝔂 𝓑𝓸𝔂𝓯𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭

Thursday, August 11th

Cory was sitting at a corner booth at the diner with his plate of chocolate chip waffles sitting untouched in front of him. He couldn't get his mind off Gracie and their conversation the night before. He liked her and all of her flaws, but she wouldn't believe him.

Cory hadn't slept well; he was running on three hours and a mug of coffee that rested beside the plate. He was in his white 'Don't Talk To Me' hoodie and baggy jeans. There were dark circles under his eyes and he could hardly keep them open at the soft music playing through the speakers.

When the bell above the door rang, Cory looked up and saw Kendall - the woman whose number he put in his phone wrong that day. She was in a yellow sundress, her brown hair was curled and her caramel eyes were framed by obviously-fake lashes. She approached the counter to put in her order before she started scanning the room for a place to sit while she waited. Once she saw him, her face lit up.

He sat back with his arms crossed, but that didn't stop her from walking toward him.

"Cory Walker? Is that you?"

"Kendall," he greeted in a bored tone. He wanted her to leave so he could mope in peace.

"I gave you my number months ago. Why didn't you text me?"

"Would you mind leaving me alone? I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone right now." He picked up his phone and tried to text Gracie. Just once.

Cory Walker:
Sent 10:35am

Call me.

We need to talk.

-

Once upon a time, Cory used to be Gracie's favorite notification. Now, she gets a message from him and all she did was ignore it. Seeing him in person made her realize that he was way out of her league.

He would never be with someone like her. It was better for her to stay away from him to avoid getting her heart broken, albeit she was already experiencing heartache just knowing that she would never be good enough for him. The only time she got up was to get out of her room. That and to pick up a tub of cookies and cream ice cream from the freezer.

Now, she understood why girls stuff their faces with ice cream after a breakup. It really did make her feel better. Gracie was watching Friends, the episode where Ross and Rachel break up. At least she wasn't the only one mourning over a relationship - or whatever it was that they had.

"Whatcha watching?" Her mom asked as though she wouldn't recognize the voices coming from the TV. Her and her daughter already finished re-binging the series so she wondered why she would go back to the saddest episode of the show.

"Cory came to surprise me at work the other day."

Debbie's interest piqued. "Oh yeah? How'd that go?"

Gracie answered with a simple one-shouldered shrug.

"Whatever we had, it's over."

"How come?"

Gracie wondered why her mom couldn't have just stayed in her room or, at least, stayed quiet. She wanted to mope around in peace.

"He looks... hot. Too hot. He'd never be happy with someone like me."

"You don't know that," Debbie said in an attempt to cheer her up. Her heart broke seeing her daughter heart broken like this.

Gracie snatched her phone from the coffee table and pulled up the picture that Cory sent her when they first started texting. When she showed it to her mom, that was enough to make her eyes bulge out of their sockets.

"Is that a Rolex?" Debbie leaned in closer with squinted eyes.

"It's some kind of... expensive brand."

She slammed her phone on the couch next to her and continued to watch Ross become adamant that they were on a break when he hooked up with someone else.

"Lllet's face it, mom. I-I'll never be... good enough for a good-looking guy like that. He deserves someone a lot hotter."

-

Cory accepted that she wasn't going to text him back. He thought he was doing something romantic by surprising her at work. He was dead wrong. "If you excuse me, I need to use the bathroom." Cory stood up from his seat and put his phone in his back pocket.

Unlocked.

Curious, Kendall watched him leave before slipping his phone out and reading all the text messages between Cory and Gracie. Something shifted in her. One minute, she was determined to find out the reason behind his change of interest in her and the next, a frown touched her lips when she saw a picture.

The girl looked gorgeous with mascara accentuating her long lashes, neutral-colored lipstick dressing up her thin lips and blush coloring in her cheeks. She resembled a princess in her dress with her mid-length hair curled like that. She suddenly understood why Cory was upset, reading the rest of their text messages up until the most recent one.

Her heart that once yearned for him dropped to the bottom of her stomach. An idea popped into her head and with that, her plump lips crawled into a mischievous smirk as she started typing.

Cory Walker:
Sent 10:38am

Hey

Gracie Summers:
Sent 10:40am

If you text me one more time, I'm blocking you.

Cory Walker:
Sent 10:40am

Good. But before you do, I just want to say .

Stay away from my boyfriend.

He's mine.

Gracie Summers:
Sent 10:41am

He has a girlfriend?

Kendall was in the middle of texting her back when Cory was walking back to the table.

Cory stopped in his tracks when he saw Kendall with his phone in her hands. His hands balled into fists and his face turned red in anger. "What the fuck are you doing with my phone?"

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[ A/N ] ❀ Proofreading & Editing by Julie_ProofEdit