My laptop was acting funny. All day, I tried to get it to respond, but it only overheated, then crashed, and I had to shut it down.

Several times.

I was genuinely scared, because the last time something like this happened, I lost some important files, and I had an incomplete physics essay on it that was due the next day.

The only thing keeping me from panicking was the pack of salted chips in front of me. It felt compulsory for me to drive to Foodie after school to get some.

I had no idea how West knew I liked the chips so much, but I felt thankful to him for getting them for me the previous day. They kept me sane after the talk with Macy, and today they were keeping unwanted thoughts away and making my taste buds happy.

The only downside: they had me thinking about him, and in the most unusual way. I couldn't stop thinking about that look in his eyes yesterday, or the loving tone of his voice when he talked about his sister, or the way I overreacted after he'd been nothing but nice to me.

I leaned back into one of my fluffy pillows, sighing as I did so. I could feel the first stage of a headache, and I let my head sink deeper into the pillow while I waited for my laptop to come back on.

I felt terrible, mostly because a part of me had been expecting West to text me, to ask how I was doing, to ask if I was okay, but every time I looked into my phone, I was disappointed. The fact that I didn't see him all day wasn't helping, either, and I wanted to scream into an empty room.

After a while of just lying there and staring at my ceiling, I felt around me for my phone. When my hand met with it, about a million things ran through my head. And they were all questions no one could answer.

Should I call him? Should I text him? What if he doesn't pick up? What if he's still mad at me? What if, what if, what if?

The questions were halted when the phone rang, and I bolted up, quickly bringing the device to my face. My stomach felt tense, like something had been tied tightly around it, but when I saw the name on my screen, a weird feeling of disappointment traveled down my spine.

Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed the disappointment to the depths of my stomach and picked up the call.

"Sato."

The way Tybalt breathed my last name into the phone made the disappointment I was trying to suppress go down even lower. He sounded relieved, like me picking up his call was a breath of fresh air.

"Hey, Tybalt. What's up?" I let my shoulders relax, quietly drawing in another breath, and I found myself tracing around the edges of the takeout pack with my index finger.

Tybalt sighed. "You have no idea how bleh this place gets without you."

I smiled to myself. "Aw, that's sweet. But are you sure it's Tybalt Gutierrez speaking? 'Cause I know the real Tybalt knows how boring I am."

I heard a noise in the background, and I pulled my phone away from my ear for a moment.

"The real Tybalt knows you're a gem. You're just in an unpolished state."

My chest felt warm, and I found my pillow again, leaning back into it and making myself comfortable. "No one has ever put it that way," I said softly, pulling the takeout pack closer to myself and taking a chip.

"No offense, but no one is dumb."

That produced a laugh from me, and I bit into my chip, fighting the urge to moan when it met with my tongue. "So . . ." My eyes drifted to my digital clock to confirm the time. "It's getting late. You're still working?"

"I just left. Had some extra stuff to do, so I stayed."

"Wow. It must be tough doing everyone's work."

"You have no idea. Although Norman showed up today."

I rolled my eyes as something occurred to me. "Explains why you called."

"What does that mean?" I could almost see the look on his face.

"It means Norman is a bad influence on you. You do whatever he asks and believe whatever he tells you."

"That is not true, Kim."

"So are you saying he didn't tell you to call me?"

My question was met with silence, and I laughed because I was right. Norman did tell Tybalt to call me.

"Okay, that was evil of me," I admitted after a while, trying to swallow my laugh. "I shouldn't have pointed it out. I'm sorry."

He released a nervous breath, then said, "I deserved that. Before I say anything else, I want you to know that Norman didn't tell me what to say."

I gave him a Cheshire grin even though he couldn't see it. "Okay."

"All right. So are you free tomorrow?"

I was about to put a chip in my mouth when he asked, and my hand froze in the air when I realized where this call was going. "I think so. Why?"

"There's this cool place about five minutes away from Sprinkles that I think you'd like. Wanna go with me?" When I didn't respond, he nervously added, "There's music, too. Nice, band music."

I laughed again, but this time because of how awkward he sounded. "Um, okay." I laughed again. "Sure. What time?"

"Why don't I pick you up at six?"

"Six. Okay. That's fine. What do I wear?" At the realization that what I said sounded weird, I corrected, "I mean, what's the place like?" I put another chip in my mouth to ward off the embarrassment.

"Just be comfortable."

"All right. Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Wait," he blurted. "I forgot to ask. You're not working tomorrow, right?"

"No. But I'll come on Wednesday."

"Okay." Did he sound relieved? "Okay. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

"Bye."

"See you."

Immediately the call disconnected, I jumped out of bed, dropping my phone to the sheets as I did so, and made my way to my closet to pick out something to wear tomorrow. My insides were giddy, and my stomach was churning with both bad memories and anticipation.

I actually had a date. A date with Tybalt Gutierrez.

When I saw girls in movies excited about dates, I thought they were overreacting because I had never been on one, but now I understood that giddiness that came when someone you cared about felt the same way about you—so much that they wanted to take things further.

Something told me I was thinking too much about it (how was I sure he wanted to take things further, and that he wasn't just bored out of his mind?), but I ignored it and tried to enjoy the feeling.

I hadn't felt this way in a long time, too focused on hating my sister's former friends and figuring out my feelings for Axel to care about anything else.

I had just taken out a pair of dark skinny jeans I had only worn twice when my text alert went off. I had it in mind to ignore it, but that ever-present voice told me it could be a text from West, so I went to check it.

It wasn't from West. It wasn't even a text.

Instead, it was an email notification, and from the preview on my screen, it was sent by a Smooches reader.

I sat on the edge of my bed so I could read it, because I had never gotten an email from a reader, and it was oddly exciting.

Dear Miss Smooches,

For months I've been enjoying your content. I thought your ideas were fresh and unique, and when you stopped updating, I felt a bit empty. The scandalous turn you've taken is drawing more attention to Smooches, and honestly I was okay with that. But your latest post has me feeling disappointed. Disappointed at what you've turned into, and how you're changing. I thought I'd let you know because I really looked up to you, and you just ruined that.

With all that said, I want to let you know that I'm not going to read your blog anymore. I can't do something like that and have a clean conscience.

With love,
Kate.

P.S. I think you should check your comments (if you haven't already). That might open your eyes.

My stomach sunk at the end, and though I had no clue what she was talking about, I had a bad feeling about it. I checked my laptop to see if it had come up, and when I saw that it had, I went ahead to check my (sister's) blog.

That was when I saw the problem, and that was when I froze.

"No, no, no, no!" The monosyllabic word was out of my mouth several times before I realized it, and I stared into my laptop screen, my hand involuntarily grabbing a fistful of my hair as my brain immediately went into overdrive.

This was not good. This was so not good.

I took my phone and, with a shaky hand, brought up my contacts. A strange heat overwhelmed me as my thumb hovered over his name, and I tried convincing myself that I could handle this on my own, but still I tapped on his name and placed the phone against my ear.

He picked up on the third ring.

"Hey," I immediately said, my voice sounding panicked. "Can you come over?"

"What's wrong?" I went cold at his question. His voice just sort of ran down my spine, leaving a strange chill in its wake. "Kimie."

I realized I was squeezing my sheets and hadn't said anything, so I drew in a quiet, shaky breath.

"Are you okay?"

"I think I'm in trouble," I said, looking at the outrageous comments on my laptop, then added, "Big trouble."

I'm sorry! I know this is shorter than the other chapters, but it had to end here. What can I do, I love cliffhangers!!

What do you guys think happened to make a reader send an email like that? See you in the comments! 💕

Special shoutout to angelina2289 for making me go to bed with a smile on my face. Thank you love!