°°° Call Counts °°° Sean bent a little to catch his breath. It was forty-five minutes past seven in the morning, and he’d been running non-stop for the past hour and sixteen minutes. He stretched out a little and looked at the beautiful but weird cloud in the skies. Looking closer, he saw a "flying saucer"-shaped cloud. With a chuckle, he took out his phone and took a picture just before the shape was altered. He admired the picture and quickly added some text to it. "Moments with you are magical." "It leaves an inexplicable sensation in my heart," he read out the text he’d edited onto the picture and forwarded it to Karen. "But you haven’t really spent any time "with" her, have you?" He laughed inwardly, shook his head, and ran off, heading back home. "Time spent on the calls still counts," he consoled himself as he ran home. • Louisville Kentucky • -May William’s Residence- Sitting in the living room while her aunt prepared breakfast, Karen sat
°°° Test of Might °°° • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • -Carl’s Automotive Repairs And Accessories- Sean sat in the break room having lunch. He hadn’t spoken to Jason in a while. "You are becoming a bad friend, homie." "Bros first, bros first!" he yelled in his head. Picking up his phone, he dialed Jason’s number. After a while, Jason picked His voice sounded groggy as he said, "Hello." "Are you just waking up?" Sean was stunned. "Yeah, what is the time?" Jason yawned. "Dude, it’s already one in the afternoon." "How could you sleep for this long?" "I was tired, bro," Jason laughed. "I've been trying to get back into shape and stuff. "Besides my parents left with Andrew this morning after breakfast, so I was able to cash in on my sleepless nights from last week." "Sorry for waking you then," Sean laughed. "Heheh… So how are you doing at work? "I didn’t call yesterday to find out about your first day experience because I figured you would be tired," Jason explained with an
°°° Jerk °°° Sean’s place was too far from the turn he took. And in less than five minutes, he could already make out his front porch. He quickly took his phone out of his pocket. They’d closed up shop late today, with the last customer leaving almost twenty-five minutes past five in the evening. After arrangements and the after-work cleaning as well as the "Saturday Shares," as they called them, they’d only been able to leave the auto shop a couple minutes past six, and since he’d decided to walk home from the shop, another thirty to forty minutes had passed. He was wondering just how many times his mom would have tried to reach him. If she stopped calling, it was going to be because she’d contacted Carlos, and he explained. He had the phone on mute, so there was no way he would have been distracted while working. Quickly going through his messages, he had a message from his mom at just past four, asking what he wanted for dinner. He was stumped that he’d lost t
°°° Safety First °°° Stepping out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and another hanging over his shoulders, the blue-eyed lad walked to his phone and opened it. He had just returned from his morning run, but he wasn’t able to run with himself feeling sore from Carl’s Auto Shop's "Saturday Rush Hour" and trying to pacify himself to stop his thoughts from raging, constantly reminding himself of his promise to himself and his mother. Even now, he was still having thoughts about going back on his words. "How can a grown man be so... juvenile?" Sean couldn’t help but grumble with a frown as he thought about Boris’ actions the previous night. "I mean, even though Sarah can be playful, this guy is just darn stupid." Making fun of a kid at work... "I'm getting revenge by getting my mom to arrive late—even Sarah wouldn’t," he said suddenly, freezing as he realized something. "Oh shit… "I haven’t called her back," his eyes widened. He had just remembered that Sarah was also
°°° Surprise °°° • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • -Walker Residence- Sitting in his swivel chair with a can of soda in his hands and a bowl of potato chips sitting beside his laptop, Sean read through the page displayed on his screen. He had returned from church a couple hours ago, and after spending over an hour with Karen on the phone, he decided to take his friend’s suggestion. He decided to start the registration process. On his way home, he had stopped at Carl’s place after grabbing the money he’d stashed away at the auto shop. He was quite surprised to have met cars that weren't there the previous night. Malone, Marco, and two of the other guys had come to complete the left-over jobs from the previous night and had accepted a couple other jobs off the books, and the profit from them was going to be theirs. Upon getting to Carl’s, Sean found out that Carl was actually aware of it and, to some extent, had promoted it. Sean’s main reason for visiting wasn’t to
°°° Seeds of Doubt °°° The streets were quiet and peaceful. The leaves in the trees rustled every now and then as the wind directed them. Sean walked down the street, his hands in his pockets, and a smile plastered across his face. It was almost eight o’clock, and although he had left Karen’s at about six thirty after his mom called, he was still a turn away from his block. He stared dreamily into the starless night sky; his mind had nothing but bliss in it. He felt a feeling he couldn’t describe, a feeling he believed was what people in the movies meant when they said, "I feel as though there are butterflies in my stomach." After getting to the airport, he sat with Karen, both of them staring into each other’s eyes for a while and saying nothing. These were experiences he had before and thought were silly, but now he was experiencing them. They had chatted about her trip, talked about the screaming kids on her flight, and the pervert on the plane who h
°°° Stalker °°° • Louisville, Kentucky • - Whites Residence- Sitting at the kitchen island, Dan White in his gray nightrobe stared blankly at the wall in front of him. It was already nine forty-nine at night, and he was still feeling down from what happened in the afternoon. He looked down at the glass of whiskey in his hands and gulped down what was left of it. "You know that’s bad for your health, right?" Ann’s voice came from behind him as she walked towards him. He turned to look at her, then turned back to the drink and poured himself another glass. "What’s the use of preserving my life when it could be taken away from me one day?" he chuckled drunkenly. Ann stood beside him and exhaled loudly. "Wanna join me?" he offered her the bottle. "I still love my life, Dan." "I still have kids to raise, so no thank you," she hissed and walked to the sink to do the dishes. Dan watched her silently for a while before taking another mouthful from his cup. "How are they?"
°°° Heart Break in an Instant °°° • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania• -Colonel William’s Residence- "Morning, old man," Karen greeted her granddad, Colonel William, with a smile as she walked to the back of the house. The Colonel put down the magazine in his hands to take a look at the person greeting him. This old-timer had almost forgotten that his grandson was in Philadelphia. Not because he was suffering from any form of amnesia due to old age, but because he was a man of schedule, and his schedule for the entire week didn’t have her on it, so her presence had managed to skip his mind as he focused on every other thing. "Oh… "I almost forgot you were here," the old man chuckled as he stood up from the black outdoor chaise pool chair, stepping out from under the cover of the beige colored umbrella, and his features became much more pronounced. This grandfather didn’t look as old as he claimed to be. With his completely black hair, save for a cluster of silver hair strands