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After Mallory’s mini meltdown at the chess tournament, the very one that she had already told Easton a million times that she hadn’t wanted to be in in the first place, it took a few days until Mallory could be dragged out of her bedroom, let alone her house. But, Easton knew that with the simple reminder that she was going to be leaving for college soon would be more than enough to lure Mallory out. And that was how they wound up wandering around their local, largely abandoned mall. The rows of closed stores did wonders to get people to mindlessly spend their money on things they certainly didn’t need.
“Mal,” Easton whined, which she’d never have admitted to doing so, as she pulled on Mallory’s arm, “can you actually listen to me for five seconds, please?”
“Yes, yes, sorry, I’m just in my head.” Mallory quickly apologized, trying her best not to continuously mull over her list of screw ups.
Easton rolled her eyes and laughed before she continued, “Chill, Mal. The world isn’t going to explode or anything just because you think you did something embarrassing. Now, I only have another week here, with you, before I leave, and I would much rather be spending it with happy Mallory.” As she had done a million times or so before, Easton’s fingers pulled Mallory’s frown into an uncomfortable smile until they both busted out in laughter, “That’s better, now, before we do anything else, we need to secure some pretzel bites.”
“You and your pretzels,” Mallory teased as Easton hooked their arms together and headed off towards her favorite pretzel shop, “but I also don’t want to deal with you without them.” It only took about eight minutes to walk across the mostly empty mall and another four minutes for them to order their pretzels. And Mallory had been telling Easton about the book she’d started the night before, when her best friend switched from looking semi-interested in the clichéd plot of her romance book to seeming like she was the one about to have a panic attack, “What is it?”
As Mallory turned to look at whatever had startled Easton, she quickly pulled Mallory’s attention back to her as she said, “No, no, uh, it’s um, it’s nothing.”
“That’s totally convincing, East.” Mallory teased in return, making a move to look at whatever it was again, but when Easton stopped her once again, she asked instead, “Seriously, what is it?”
Without pulling her attention away from whatever it was, Easton pulled her phone out of her pocket and typed something quickly while she said, “I think you got a message, Mal.”
Sure enough, shortly after the words passed Easton’s lips, Mallory’s phone pinged with a notification. Which, of course, was a direct message from Easton’s account. As she casted a questioning look in Easton’s direction, Mallory swiped her phone open and pulled up the message.
nolan’s here
wdym he’s here?
he’s behind you
w/ his friends
dk he had friends
i’m gonna go listen
Before Mallory had even processed that, for some reason, Nolan Sawyer was in their local mall, let alone that Easton had decided to eavesdrop on his conversation with his apparent friends, her best friend had already hopped out of her seat and shuffled towards the trio. Easton ignored the messages and the whispered plea from Mallory to not go listen to him, but it was all futile to sway her decision. Shortly after Easton found a totally casual spot along a wall close to them, where she was also semi-hidden by a large, leafy plant, Mallory started getting more messages from her.
okay so
i think they’re like speaking in french
?
idk mal
it just sounds like french
Easton had taken Spanish in high school, like most students did, since they had to take two years of a foreign language to graduate. So she had no idea what they’d be saying in French if that was what the language they were speaking. But, Mallory had opted to take French rather than Spanish for her class requirements. By no means was she fluent in the language, but she had a better chance of being able to understand it than Easton did.
send me what they’re saying
right u took french
okay
case toi trow due cull
omg you’re hopeless
shut up
i think that’s casse-toi trou du cul
which is like get lost smtn ass
lol
that was nolan i think
then the other dude said smtn i missed
but him and the girl laughed
nolan sounded annoyed
va ah dieable
go to hell
rude
that’s what they said
mhm
two as lay begun pour el
autocorrect it killing me
nah you are just hopeless
i am gonna guess it’s tu as le beguin pour elle
you’ve got to be a better listener
shut up
what does that mean?
uh
idk
bullshit
it’s like you like her or smtn
the girl just said your name
i think
this isn’t exactly the kind of conversations we learned
what????
are u sure?
v sure
it sounded like mallory
they talk too fast hold on
maybe speech to text will work better than me
While she was waiting for the next message from Easton, Mallory swiped back to her home feed and was endlessly bombarded by clips and pictures of Nolan. (Easton had made her account follow him after the tournament that she’d bailed on, and she was already getting tagged in posts with him from nearly every unflattering angle possible.) Which all reminded Mallory of how much, for some reason, his mere presence annoyed her. And after scrolling past another thirst trap edit of Nolan to an obnoxious pop song, her DMs pinged with another notification. Before she’d even read the new message, Mallory typed and sent one of her own.
nolan’s such an asshole but he’s also cute
it’s hella annoying yk?
ouch
ig i deserve that for smtn
She got another notification from Easton, a long string of French from what Mallory could tell, as she felt her heart sink in her chest. Mallory could’ve sworn she’d opened up her direct message thread with Easton. But when she looked up at the username at the top of the thread, which was far sparser than her thread with Easton, which should’ve been a sign, Mallory dreaded seeing Nolan’s stupid username at the top. As she tried to look over at Easton for help, she instead caught Nolan’s gaze, and Mallory redirected her attention back to her phone as she quickly stood up and walked in the opposite direction as she sent a quick ‘SOS’ to Easton before she replied back to him.
i am so sorry!! that was meant for someone else
i appreciate the honesty tho
i wasn’t talking about you btw
it was about a different nolan
don’t worry about it
hopefully your other nolan isn’t too bad of a guy
at least he’s cute tho, even if he’s an asshole
Mallory had never wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear more than she did right then and there.