Chapter 4

"I can't believe school starts in just a mere two weeks. That's absolutely crazy to me. This summer has been good to us, ya know what I mean PP?" Kelly said, swiftly changing the subject to something more lighthearted. I harrumphed under my breath at her statement and kept my back to her. Maybe her summer has been amazing, but mine was spent working my butt off at my mom's flower shop or babysitting Tanya. Neither of which I got paid too generously for. Not that I was exactly complaining, though. I loved helping out my mom in any way I possibly could, and it also didn't hurt that Tanya was one of my favorite people in my life. "Are you excited to be starting classes? We've only been talking about nursing school together for, like, our entire lives!" she ranted animatedly. I turned back around and laughed, amused at the way she was bouncing in her seat like a little kid. "Of course I'm excited! I'm not only getting the chance to further my education, but it's also going to open up the opportunity of pursuing my dream of taking care of others. Who wouldn't be excited?" Kelly scrunched her nose up as if smelling something rank and scoffed at me. "You make it sound so.... grown up when you put it that way." I laughed at her reply. "Why are you majoring in nursing then?" I asked, mentally preparing myself for the answer she was about to give me. I had come to expect the worst whenever Kelly opened her mouth. "Because I'm not smart enough to be a doctor and my dad wants me to go into the medical field; simple as that. Now," she exclaimed, clapping her hands together, "enough chit-chat! Let's get ready and go shopping for our rush dresses. We only have, like, two days left until it all starts and we need to look our absolute best! When we're done we can finish picking up what we need for our dorm suite. Sound good?" she asked. I let out an exasperated sigh with a roll of my eyes, letting my comment about nursing school being anything but a walk in the park die on my tongue. Some things Kelly would have to learn for herself and I'd decided that this was one of them. I nodded and got Tanya and myself dressed for a painfully long day of shopping, something that happened to be Kelly's favorite hobby and pastime. ... My feet were absolutely killing me and Tanya had already begun to grow cranky from her lack of a nap. Despite the situation, I was trying my best to be patient with Kelly while she debated the pros and cons between getting a clear shower caddy over the hot pink one. Personally, the whole thing seemed trivial to me, but I wasn't going to tell Kelly that. The matter seemed rather important to her, and who was I to burst her happy bubble? "I just don't know, PP. The clear one would get dirty super easy, but what if I got tired of the hot pink color after a while?" she paused her train of thought to throw a glance my way, raising her eyebrow at me and obviously waiting for my input. "You could just get both instead of choosing and switch them out when you get bored or tired of one or the other. Your parents are paying for everything anyway," I suggested while praying that my input would get us out of here as quickly as. "Hmm...I didn't think about that. But what if-" she started before being cut off by the loud blaring of her cell phone from her purse. She frantically dug through the unorganized bag as the call lingered on until finally fishing it out and pressing the answer button, not stopping to check the caller ID first. "Hello?...wait, what?!" she dramatically pulled the phone away from her face and checked the name on the screen before a worried look crossed over her face. I gave her a questioning look, asking who is it? with my eyes, but she just shook her head and held up her index finger, motioning for me to wait. "Why are you calling me? What do you want?" she continued, obviously housing some harsh feelings towards whoever was on the receiving end. She listened for a minute or two before glancing up at me once again and chewed on her lip intently. "Um, Penny, I'm gonna step away for a second. I'll just be right around the corner, okay?" despite the pale coloring of her face as she spoke, I brushed off the weird feeling I had and nodded my head, watching her as she vanished from my line of sight. Kelly and I never kept secrets, so I knew she would tell me about this mysterious phone call in due time. True to her word, it was a few minutes before Kelly finally made her return. The only difference was she was even paler than before she'd left. "Is everything alright?" I asked, concern lacing my tone. "Uh, yeah! Totally! Everything is great. Um, I'm just gonna get the clear one and we can leave," she mumbled before speed walking off with the cart, leaving me standing in the middle of the aisle shell-shocked. She's never been so evasive with me before, which means something must be seriously wrong. I was torn, unsure whether I should pry the information out of her right now, or give her space and let her come to me when she's ready like usual. Nothing had ever affected her to this caliber before. After deciding it was just better to just leave the subject and let her approach me, I shook my head and joined her and my little sister at the checkout line, silently mulling over who could've possibly called her to evoke this kind of reaction in her. ...