~26~ Sorry

(Vanessa’s POV)

“If this is someone trying to prank call here again, I’m not very affected by it,” I saw Paige answer her phone. I laughed when she hung up.

“Way to go,” I poked. Then, my own phone started ringing, telling em that it was a Private Number.

“I don’t know who this is, but—”

“Nessa, just put Mom on the phone,” my little brother commanded. I didn’t question it. Just like I didn’t question how he went this long without talking to me and then demanded to speak to our mother.

But nonetheless, I did as he said and when my phone was in possession of our mom, I listened through the door because she surely put it on speaker.

“WHAT THE H3LL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” I heard Zac yell at her at first. I wanted to go in there, reach through the phone and scold him for it, but I couldn’t.

“Well it’s nice to hear from you again,” my mother replied like he’d given her the nicest greeting in the world.

“You let Angel talk to you and now she found me—or I found her…whatever! What did you say to her and since when do you even interact with someone outside of this family or some rehab doctor!?” So Angel found him. I was just as disappointed as him right now for the thought of her dressing up and holding a conversation with Angel that I hadn’t had with her.

“I’m forty-eight years old. I’m sure that I know who I can speak to,” she said in a calm voice.

“No. You don’t,” he denied. “Because Angel isn’t one of those people and because of you she and Brian and Lulu and probably everyone else can find me!”

“I don’t see why you kept it a secret in the first place,” she said. Zac sighed through the phone.

“We’ve been over this already,” he reminded. “And I don’t want to go over it again because obviously you never listen to me. Now, what did you say to her?”

“Ask her yourself.”

There was a silence after that. Suddenly, the door opened, sending me forward into my mother. Sh1t, I got caught. But all she did was hold the phone out to me.

“Don’t accept any of his calls or any New York calls unless I say so,” she ordered and then closed the door in my face. What the h3ll was that supposed to mean?

***

(Angel’s POV)

I was digging through my purse on my way to the car from the store when I bumped into someone and all its contents spilled onto the asphalt. Great.

“I’m so sorry—” I apologized as I crouched to the ground to gather my stuff. To my surprise, she person stood there and I looked up to see Zac’s shadow figure blocking the sun from my perspective. Even better…

I had nearly everything in my bag and I started to switch positions so I could stand up easier, but when I reached over to grab my phone, Zac grabbed it for me. I stood up and looked at him.  I took the phone from him and rubbed shoulders with him on my way to my car. I rummaged through my bag even more and still couldn’t find my keys. I looked to the ignition in the car to find them there.

“Ugh,” I scoffed. I immediately called Nelly so she could come over with the spare key.

“ ‘Ello?” she answered.

“Hey, Nelly. I kind of left—” Beep-beep.

I held my phone away from my head and rolled my eyes at the screen with the flashing battery. And now my phone’s dead. With Advil and ice cream in my shopping bag, I locked my keys in the car and now my phone was dead. I felt a car next to me and next thing I knew, Zac was there in a fixed up and beautiful 1965 red Mustang. He rolled the window down and I saw that he had dark Aviators on.

“Get in; I’ll drive you home,” he said. I wasn’t up for arguing and I wasn’t up for sitting in a car telling him where to go and what turn to take, but I still sat down in the passenger seat.

“Chocolate chip ice cream,” he commented as he pulled out of the parking lot. I looked out the side window. “You haven’t changed.”

But you have.

“And a new box of Advil?” he asked. “That’s actually rather—”

“Would you stop looking through my grocery bag?” I interrupted. “Godd4mn…”

“I was just trying to start a conversation,” he commented.

“Well don’t,” I retorted. Yes. Because normally after people accuse others of being pregnant by your actual ex-boyfriend, they want to follow that up two days later by driving you home with a conversation not under your request.

How was I so stupid? I locked my keys in the car! Ugh—wait. Sh!t. That means I didn’t have my stupid house keys either. UGH. Awesome. Way to go, Angel. Zac pulled up to my house and I needed a way to get inside, because Nelly wasn’t home. So I sat in Zac’s car, day dreaming the possibilities, but of course in real life I didn’t have super lasers…or a shrinking power to slide under the door…or even the ability/balance to climb the tree near my window that was always open.

“Let me guess,” Zac started, turning off his car. “Your house keys are on the same ring as your car keys.”

I made no comment.

“Well can’t Nelly open the door?” he asked. I made no comment. “…and I’m guessing she’s not home. You can call her though.”

I made no comment.

“Ah, and your phone’s probably dead,” he added. I could tell that he would totally be smiling and laughing at me by now, but instead, I looked over to him to see that he was holding out his phone to me with a serious look on his face. I took it and dialed Nelly’s number, surprised that it matched the contact with Nelly’s name on it.

“Zac?” she asked, still shocking me that she even knew his number. “What do you want? Me and Grace are busy.”

“It’s Angel,” I informed.

“Oh hey. Why are you with Zac? What’s up?” she asked.

“I locked my keys in the car so he gave me a ride home,” I explained. “Do you remember where the spare is?”

“Yeah, in…a drawer of some sort?” she answered, unsure.

“I meant for the house.”

There was a pause.

“That’s the one Brian has,” she reminded.

“Is he home?” I asked.

“He was when I left, but I don’t know about now,” she notified. I sighed.

“Um. Okay. I’ll…figure something out,” I said. “Bye.”

I handed the phone back to Zac, but he didn’t take it.

“Call Brian,” he suggested. He was leaning against his open window with his head propped on his hand.

“I don’t know his new number by memory,” I said. He snatched the phone out of my hand and  I looked past it, somewhat glad that maybe he could be mad at me so he wouldn’t ever try to start another conversation with me. “I’ll just call a locksmith…”

I found him to be holding his phone up to his left ear.

“Angel locked her keys in the car. Are you home?” I heard him ask someone. Who…? Not Brian, though, right? Zac looked over to me.

“Is there a tree by your window?” he asked me.

“Yeah?” I answered.

“Just grow the tree like you did the other night,” he ordered. No. No, no, no, no, no. Why was he talking to Brian? How did he even have his number? Unless…they’ve talked before. Recently. “Fine.”

Suddenly, Zac threw his phone into my lap and angrily left the car, stomping to the sidewalk and started a commute to the alley by my house. Wait…what was he doing? I got out of the car and jogged in the same direction as him and couldn’t find him. Out of desperation, I looked up into the tree he was talking about and saw him at the very top, leaning over to open my window. Aw, what the h3ll? He climbed in with no hesitation and then moments later, he was calling me from behind.

“Come on then,” he said before disappearing from the corner. I jogged into my house, immediately looking through the living room drawers—after putting my ice cream in the freezer—as Zac walked back up the stairs, probably helping me find the spare car key.

After looking for ten or fifteen minutes, I went upstairs and found Zac in my room, facing my desk completely still.

“Did you find it?” I asked. He didn’t answer me so I walked over. I looked down to the desk and saw the key laying there. I smiled and shook his arm. “Okay, we can go now.”

I turned to leave, but found him staring down at the desk as if in a trace. But why? There was a turned off laptop, pile of college books and receipts, a cup of writing utensils and an opened drawer. The only thing in the drawer was my high school yearbook, a couple journals, and in the far back was the stupid necklace Zac’s mom gave me in a box, but I was the only one to know it was there. I mean, it’s not like Zac could see through the desk and box to see it. And it’s not like he could bring it up again because that box is going to be shipped back to Zac’s mom as soon as possible. I shook his arm once more to pull him out of his trace.

“Let’s go,” I ordered, seriously not seeing the problem here. He closed my window and then left with me in silence.

***

We got back to the store’s parking lot and I climbed out of the mustang with no thank you or ounce of gratitude from Zac. When I put the spare key in the door and turned it. The usual click that it made when the doors were unlocked didn’t happen. What? I looked across the seats to the passenger side and saw the lock opened. No way. My doors were already unlocked. UGH.

I turned on my heels to face Zac just to see if he saw my idiotic mistake of not checking the doors before we left here. He still had the same dazed look on his face from my room.

“Congrats. You had to chauffeur me around for nothing,” I commented.

“Anytime,” he said, which wasn’t what I expected. When I started to question it, he shook himself out of his daze and looked over to me. “Look. I’m sorry about what I said.”

“It was—” Stupid. Idiotic. Demeaning. Ridiculous.

“You didn’t deserve it,” he said, which changed everything. I didn’t deserve anything he gave me. Not his attitude, or that note. Or even what I thought was an ounce of love from last year. I didn’t deserve any of it. “I just don’t know what all has happened this year or what’s between you and Joey—”

“We’re still broken up—happily broken up,” I said with my arms crossed. What would make him think we were together?

“You sure about that?” he asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, offended.

“You know what it means,” he said. “He still loves you and would do anything to—”

“He’s moved on! It’s been a year. He’s moved on to other girls and I’ve moved on,” I said in a partial lie. If we truly moved on, we wouldn’t have kissed earlier. But then again, it was him who was guilty for leaving and betraying Meghan.

“Then why is it that—” He stopped himself.

“Why is it that, what?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said with disgust. “Forget it. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me until you mean it and it stands for all you’ve done to me,” I retorted. It somehow went from my thoughts to my mouth, but I didn’t mean for it to be that way. That’s why I climbed into my car and drove away from him.