Rising Shards

“Greetings, Zeta. I hope this finds you well. I am enjoying the phone you gifted to me.”

Oka told me she’d be busy for the first half of the week, but for some reason I thought she’d said she’d be busy all week and prepped for a girlfriend-less week. So it was surprising to wake up to find a message from Oka on my phone. I had sore shoulders from sleeping on the couch, so waking up to talk to Oka was nice. I was able to wrangle my phone back from Stella, on the rule from her that I had to just text or call Oka and my friends, and not go on any depressing or anxiety inducing websites.

“You dont have to havethe full message hahah. its cute though” I texted back. “*have the”

The typing bubbles came up, then stopped, and I worried that maybe Oka was a bigger grammar snob than I’d realized and that I’d just ruined everything.

“is it hard to get used to? the phone I mean”

Thankfully, she responded to this quickly.

“I am learning! I want to be able to message you lots. I would call you right now, but I am sitting in the back of a Kilander family meeting. I’m trying to text sneakily, so no one calls me out on it.”

“ohh” I texted. “Is it about kitty?”

“I thought it would be. She’s not here though and no one’s mentioned her. It’s just boring boringness about the Kilander show and business stuff.”

“weird!”

“But it means I get to text you during it!”

“YAY. How are you doing? Because the last week has been a lot for me.”

“Oh no! I’ve been…alright.”

Oka had received the harshest attack from Jeans during our fight. I was still shaken up thinking about that, so I couldn’t imagine how she felt. In addition to Kitty’s arrival. And having so many of our friends end up at Wildfire Hearts.

“It was a lot. Im still pretty messed up feeling about it tbh”

“I wish you were here. And I wish that even more so hearing it’s been hard for you. Lots of hugs when we’re back at school, alright?”

“yes! Many hugs! we have to have date date too!”

Oka sent a bunch of hearts back. She started sending like maybe too many, like almost a hundred since she still was new to texting etiquette, but I didn’t mind.

“Oh, hm. Something weird just came up in the meeting.”

“Weird how?”

“Berin has some friends visiting town soon from overseas, and they’re making a big deal about it. I guess they did something important together? They’re being vague about it, but Berin is embarrassed. This is weird.”

“huh.”

“I also did not realize the Berint had friends. That may be the weirdest part.”

I couldn’t stop giggling as Oka escalated her takes on her adoptive parent’s lack of friend making ability, which quickly grew more absurd once I was able to relay how funny I found it.

“Is there anything I can make you feel better with over the phone?”

“I don’t wanna bug you”

“No you’re not! I’m super bored here. And I love you so I want to be there for you! I had a nightmare last night so I’m happy to talk to you.”

“D: what happened?”

“For some reason in the dream, you went to Wildfire Hearts, and you got…THEM…as roommates. I just couldn’t stop thinking about them taking you away. It was almost worse than the freaky nightmare in the void trip where you were like stuck on a chip bag label.”

“oh man that’s awful. Well I would NEEVER goto wildfire hearts and I especially would never ever room with them. I didn’t like……..i wasn’t WITH them was I?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Like some kind of situation where you were their servant basically though. It was a nightmare after all!”

“YUCK. Well don’t worry about either. When we were there…jeans definitely tried. She acted like she was never dating ovie, or that I was never dating you, or that she and I had never split…it was scary.”

“That is SO scary. I wasn’t worried in the sense that you’d leave me willingly…but I saw in your memory trial how mentally controlling she could be. I’m glad you fought back against her attempt.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to without you. Plus….You a LOT cuter. Like magnitudes cuter. Honestly seeing her again had me like…this may sound dumb”

“No, keep going!!”

“like. Seeing her again…I was like what did I ever see in her just on an attraction level. Especially now that im dating you now who’s like probably the cutest thing to ever cute?????? Like even without all the horrible stuff she did to us…I just found her kind of unpleasant to look at. Kind of REALLY unpleasant to look at. and she smeleld really bad too idk”

“That…makes me really happy to hear. Is that bad?”

“I hope not. Also even though I feel bad for her, and I am thankful she did help us in the fight, I always thought Ovie was gross too, and that was pre her greasy hair. I’m not attracted to permanent sneers. MEANWHILE YOU ARE THE CUTEST.”

“I think I may have some competition…from THIS GIRL.”

There was no response for five minutes.

“?”

“Hang on. I’m trying to figure out how to get a picture here…”

Another five minutes passed.

“I WAS GONNA SEND A PICTURE OF YOU BUT I CAN’T FIGURE OUT THE DOWNLOADING PART”

“Where are you downloading a picture of me from????”

“From your social page! The download isn’t working!”

“You can’t download images from Friendliest unless it’s your own picture”

“WELL.”

The conversation quickly turned into who could share the most heart and blushing emojis for a while, which was good because I was feeling warm talking to her about the stuff that had been rattling around my mind for so long while I crushed on her. Stuff that was easier to say over text before saying out loud.

The idea of being some kind of third wheel servant-partner to Jeans and Ovie made my stomach churn, but I think my immediate revulsion to the idea made Oka feel better. Since she told me her nightmare, I felt like I had to let mine out.

“I keep having a dream about when Jeans attacked you. Im sorry I couldn’t stop that”

The typing bubble popped up for a long while, which had me nervous.

“That wasn’t your fault! That whole thing was so scary. But in the moment, all I could think about was how I could get up to protect you.”

“aww”

“And I’m OK, the scar’s pretty light so I can always cover it up til it heals more. If you hadn’t fought off Jeans, if Kalei hadn’t, it would’ve been a lot worse. But it wasn’t! I’d say we were all pretty brave there.”

We talked for a bit about the coolest moves of the day, agreeing that our dual slash to the Starlight Despair was probably the best, even if I had my personal vote going to when Oka blew up a drone then handed me a conjured flower in one smooth motion.

I didn’t realize how late it was by the time Stella got home.

“I got Ultra Taco!” Stella proudly and loudly announced, plopping a bag on the kitchen table, bringing the pleasant odor of fast food into the apartment.

“Oh, I know that look,” Stella said. “Still texting the girlfriend, huh?”

“I better go, Stellas here and shes teasing me already”

“Alright, tell her hi from me! Let’s text about something more fun next time. ;)”

I tried to will myself not to imagine what she was thinking there to force myself not to blush more and face more of Stella’s teasing. Especially when she rushed behind the couch to peek over my shoulder. I quickly put my phone in sleep mode so she couldn’t see.

“She’s liking that phone, huh?” Stella asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Oka says hi!”

“Tell her I say hi back.” Stella said.

“I just said goodnight to her!” I said. “It’d be awkward, I dunno.”

“Just text ‘Stella says hi back’ and then say goodnight again!”

The idea of having Oka to text for the rest of the week was nice. We got to vent a bit about everything that happened; being able to talk things out right away and have our fears quelled was nice.