Never Leave Me On Read ❤️

A football bounced off the table, narrowly missing the carton of hash brown bites the girls were sharing. Mia and Julie flinched, and scowled.

"Hey!" Julie shouted. "Watch it!"

The boy shouted back something rude,and his friends laughed.

Aster was the only one who didn't get involved, and didn't much care about the football, or the food, or the swaggering boys with their silly floppy fringes and too much body spray. She moved her phone along the table, to a safer spot, taking the opportunity to tap the screen and check for the little symbol that meant an unread message.

Maya leaned in, football forgotten. "You’re going to get caught."

Aster smirked. "Am not."

Julie raised an eyebrow. "You handed your phone in this morning. I saw you."

"That's right," Aster said. "This one’s spare."

Mia's eyeballs were large round O's of shock. "You've got a burner? You're, like, I dunno, a drug dealer or something."

Aster shrugged. "It’s just my mum's old one."

It lit up, and a moment behind it, Aster did the same, grabbing it eagerly.

Julie grinned. "Is that your mystery boyfriend again?"

Aster smiled, and went very pink.

Mia nudged her. "How long have you guys been talking now? Getting pretty serious?"

"I don't know," Aster blushed deeper. "He’s funny, I suppose. And he listens."

Mia rolled her eyes. "You’ve never met him, though, have you? So he's not a real boyfriend."

"You haven't met half your followers," Aster said. "Doesn’t mean they’re not real."

The other girls could have handled it better if Aster gossiped about this boy, if she bragged. But she didn't. They only knew about him because they'd caught sight of the screen. It seemed to have an awful lot of heart eye emojis. Boys never texted then that sort of thing.

The bell rang.

Mia and Julie stood.

"Coming, Aster?" Mia said.

Aster shook her head. "Double geography? I’ll pass." She swung her bag over her shoulder.

Julie frowned. "You’ve skipped every Geography and Maths lesson this week. And PE."

Aster shrugged again, their concern rolling off her shoulders.

"I’ll catch up. Anyway, I don't like Geography."

"You really will get in trouble, you know. You’ll get detention."

Aster smiled, to show her friends there was no hard feelings, waggled her fingers at them, and walked away, in the opposite direction of the Humanities block.

Once the heaving crowd thinned, hundreds of tweens and teens scampering to waste another hour of their lives in the dullest way imaginable, Aster circled back around the west block, slipped through the side gate and into the Science corridor. She squeezed into the space behind the third row of lockers, and plugged in the battery pack. There were messages waiting.

He was waiting.

yo u actually brought a spare?? 😮
that’s kinda genius ngl

lol it’s just mum’s old phone
no sim, just wifi

still. u hacked the system 😎
everyone else just hands their soul in at reg

they’d freak if they knew

exactly. keep it lowkey
no one watching, no weird apps tracking u

u sound like my dad now 😂

nahhh i’m not tryna control u
just saying u deserve space ❤️

i get that here tbh
it’s quiet

and u actually think for urself
not just vibes
like u notice stuff
patterns, ppl, moods

ok now u sound like a therapist or smth 😅

haha sorry
just like talking to u
feels real

hrad same

can I tell u sth tho...

Sure.

kinda miss u 🥺

im rigt here ❤️

I mean when u go home
feels like a long time til.ur bk
kwim?

Yeah. I do.

kinda wanna talk to u later at night sometimes
when im thinking about u
not being weird or anything
just wanna let u know, yk?

U think about me? X

course. your special xx

plus, if they ever take that phone, i’d lose u 🥺
maybe drop me ur normal number?
i promise i won’t msg unless u say

...

Aster?

...

U there?

...

ok but fr don’t be weird on it
dad checks stuff

never
pinky swear 🤞
just wanna make sure i can find u if things go sideways

+

He didn't ask for permission to use the camera this time. It didn't matter. She didn’t notice. Didn’t notice the silent ping either. Didn’t know the device had just synced with a remote node.

Oblivious, blissful, she kept typing, kept pouring her heart out, and he kept listening, never leaving her on read.