'Why was he angry?' Irene mused, then stopped him before he could leave. "Tristan, wait!"
"I've got somewhere to be. See you later," Tristan said without turning back, while Irene stood there, speechless, wondering what could have gotten him so worked up.
****
Irene hovered by her locker until she could follow Ava on her own.
Unfortunately, Ava seemed constantly surrounded by her loud, laughing friends.
'This isn't easy! God, how many friends does she have? They're like her private army or something! And to think, I used to be one of them,' Irene mused as she watched Ava and her friends.
After what felt like an eternity to Irene, Ava was finally alone, and she approached her as she was shutting her locker.
Ava saw Irene approaching and scowled. "Oh, look who it is… Little Miss Memory Loss! What do you want?" Ava said, but Irene ignored her words and focused on the reason she had approached Ava in the first place.
"We need to talk about the night I went missing, the night of your party."
"What?" Ava exclaimed, clearly surprised by what Irene had said.
"We were friends before… Why would you act this way? Why would you keep this from me?" Irene asked, curious to know what had happened between them.
"Yeah! We WERE friends before! Until you betrayed me," Ava said, anger simmering in her eyes.
Irene's brows knitted together as she thought, 'Betrayed? What did I do?'
Ava continued, "In fact, I don't really feel like talking to you! Telling you what I know won't help me in any way. You can just forget about it."
Ava was about to walk away when— "Start talking, or I'm going to the cops and let them know I went missing at your party," Irene threatened.
"What? Why?" Ava said, turning to face Irene.
"I've already had to deal with them plenty of times. They can't figure out what I was doing in that office building that night either. But I'm sure they'd love to have a lead in the most popular girl in school."
Ava's face went pale at Irene's words, and she glared at her. "Fine! For the record… The old you would have understood why I have to keep this quiet."
Irene shrugged. "Well, the old me isn't here now. Start talking!"
"If everyone found out it was my party you went missing from, my family's reputation could be ruined," Ava admitted.
"Aw, poor you. I lost my entire memory, but I'm supposed to be concerned about your family's reputation?" Irene retorted.
"Easy for you to say. I don't even want to think about what my father would do to me if he found out about the parties we had."
"What was so special about this party, anyway? Why was it downtown in that office?" Irene asked, folding her hands together.
"Nothing. It was a normal party; I have them all the time. Oh, right! You don't remember… My dad owns the Silver Tower, so his key card gives me access to anywhere I want. Usually, we sneak past security and party on one of the office floors. The cleaners just think it's an office party and clean it up before Monday. Nobody finds out and nobody gets in trouble. The only weird thing was that somebody found this old spell-book somewhere and tried to summon spirits with it," Ava explained.
"What? Why?" Irene exclaimed.
"I don't know… We were bored."
"Where's the spell-book now?" Irene asked, and when Ava raised her brows at her, Irene sighed. "Just trust me… I need to know."
The bell rang, and Ava glanced over her shoulder as she answered, "Argh! I'm going to be late for my next class. Fine! It's in Roman's car."
"Roman's car?" Irene repeated.
"I didn't know where else to hide it. It's probably still there; he's not very observant. Anyway, I have got to go," Ava said, walking away and leaving Irene alone, who pursed her lips together, formulating a plan about what to do next.
Later at home that evening, Irene was dressed in a chiffon flowered dress as she waited for Roman to pick her up for their movie date.
'I can sneak the book from his car without him knowing,' Irene mused, then suddenly felt bad about the whole thing. 'What if Roman caught me and thought I was using him?'
She found Roman endearing, and she didn't want to do anything that would hurt his feelings.
Ashley knocked on Irene's door, pulling her out of her thoughts. "Hey sweetheart, there's a handsome young man downstairs; he says he's here for a date? He probably has the wrong house, right?"
"No, Aunt Ashley. He's here for me," Irene said, then cringed at her last words. 'God, that's odd'
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize! Well, that's good. Come down whenever you're ready. I'll keep him busy," Ashley said, and Irene nodded.
She quickly gathered her purse and hurried downstairs to find a nervous Roman sitting on the couch talking to her chatty Aunt Ashley.
"And what are your plans for college?"
"Well, I want to go to medical school, so–"
"You want to be a doctor? That's amazing. I just started seeing a dentist, you know. He's so great," Ashley cut in, interrupting Roman.
When Roman caught sight of Irene, his eyes lit up and he smiled warmly at her, while Irene felt her heart skip a beat at his beautiful smile.
"Okay, Aunt Ashley! We have got to go," Irene announced.
"Oh, but Roman was just telling me how he wants to be a doctor."
"Yeah, but we're going to miss our movie."
"Oh, fine! Roman, it was so nice to meet you! Come back again, okay?"
"Thanks, I will."
Irene took Roman's hand and managed to escape from Ashley's clutches.
In the car with Roman, it was just a short drive to the cinema.
"Sorry about that. I'd say she's always this overbearing, but I actually don't know if that's the case."
"That's okay! She's super nice. I like her a lot," Roman said as he pulled into a parking spot, then turned to Irene. "So, since I've met your family, I guess that makes things between us pretty official."
"Huh?" Irene blinked, clearly taken aback. She faked a cough and smoothly changed the subject, "We're going to be late."
A thought suddenly struck Irene as she reached for the door handle. 'I should leave my bag here… It might be the perfect excuse to go back to his car alone and search for that spellbook.'