Italics - Malaika

It was three in the morning and I was still trying to fall asleep. It wasn't anything new but the lack of sleep was taking its toll on my body. I was having a harder time paying attention in class plus coupled with work at the diner after school it was all a huge mess.

Giving up on sleep I fished my beat up phone from under my thin pillow and went online. I couldn't afford a data subscription seeing as my aunt didn't pay me but I still managed. Simon, our neighbor owned a cyber cafe next to the diner and he always left the WiFi on for me to use. He was a kind man and understood my situation plus he liked all the treats that I gave him from the diner. My aunt didn't let me to go the library to study and I couldn't stay back to use the one at school since I had to go straight home to work.

Yes my aunt Margaret was an A-class bitch, excuse my language but she was the only family that I knew. She had raised me ever since I was a baby, put food on the table, educated and clothed me and I'd only slept outside a few times when I misbehaved but others had it worse. I didn't have my own room, instead I slept on a thin matress behind the sofa in my aunt's living room. It was a one bedroom apartment on the first floor and the diner was on the ground floor.

Enough about my pathetic life, back to finding something to do on my cracked phone. A customer had left it behind at the diner and I took it for safe keeping in case he ever came back for it but he never did. Simon was the one who convinced me to use it after he cleared everything it had of the previous owner. He also bought me a new sim card. My aunt didn't know about the phone as she didn't approve of me having any electronics that's why I only used it late at night.

Sorry I got distracted again, that happens a lot. The screen lit up blinding me for a second and a few tears escaped my eyes. I wiped them off and waited for my eyes to adjust to the light before resuming my task of finding a distraction. I had a few apps on the phone and had social media accounts under an imaginary user name. I didn't have friends to chat with so I didn't have anyone to text , what was point of making any when you could never hang out with them or talk to them unless it was in secret.

I scrolled through the different apps and finally landed on Tiktok. It was my least favorite app seeing as most people on it were fake and doing everything for clout. It was such a sad world where nobody was real anymore, except for Simon, he was my only friend. The app might have been fake but it provided a lot of entertainment. Not wanting to wake my aunt, my hand dived under my pillow again and came up with a pair of new earphones.

My aunt changed phones all the time so she had a bunch of earphones laying around therefore she didn't notice if a pair went missing. I plugged them into the phone and clicked on the app. My profile picture was Mulan, from the movie not the animation and my user name was Night_Owl_254. It was not the most original name but I created the account in a rush excited to see what all the Tiktok fuss was about. I had been greatly disappointed but I still stuck with the name. It fit perfectly.

First video that popped up on my for you page was a couple pranking each other. Nope. Swipe up. I didn't know how the Tiktok algorithm worked but it was definitely not in my favor seeing as the next thirty videos I swiped on were of different couples doing different things, couply things . Yeah as if that would ever happen to me. My aunt would work me until I was old and grey or until she died. Then I'd inherit the diner, that's if she left it for me and then I'd die old and alone like her.

I finally caught a break when a video popped up of a guy doing skateboarding stunts with his friends. He was very handsome, tall, blonde with blue eyes. He had a well built body as far as I could see but definitely out of my league and oh yeah in another continent. The stunts looked dangerous but he did them so effortlessly. His video didn't have that many likes so I double clicked on it and went to the comment section. Everyone was saying how cool the moves were and the girls were commenting on how cute he was. I'd never commented on a video before but I was sleep deprived and bored so I started typing.

That looks dangerous. You should be more careful.

I sounded like an overprotective mom but I didn't care. It's not like he was going to reply anyway. I clicked on his profile and read his bio. His name was William Ganner, user name Will_I_Am, not so original either. He was eighteen and in his senior year of high school living in Billings city, Montana. I was in form four which was basically the same thing seeing as we had different education systems. He had about ten thousand followers which was ten thousand more than I did so kudos to him.

I started scrolling through his videos and most of them were about skateboarding but in a few he was doing different challenges like everyone else.He even had a shirtless video doing heaven knows what and I spent more time than I should have watching it. I commented on a few more videos feeling like a stalker before I finally felt sleep creep in. I shoved my contraband under the pillow and went to sleep haunted by a pair of blue eyes. That's what I got for stalking a cute white guy before bed.

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I know I promised you guys a dialogue story but it's coming up soon I promise. Have an apple from my tree while you wait. I will make the next chapter better.