Chapter 1: Tyler

Deep breath… in… out. You’ll be fine, as you always have. I thought to myself taking deep breaths to clear my head as I got into position. It’s not like you haven’t done this a million times….well maybe not a million per se, closer to a hundred probably….oh my god come focus! I waited a few more seconds clearing my mind of useless thoughts so not to be distracted.

“Go!” my coach shouted and I was off at a sprint, quickly picking up speed and passing up the other runners with ease. I continued my fast pace, feeling and loving the surge of adrenaline that came with pulling a quick and early lead and just running in general. I felt at peace while running, it was a way to relieve the stress of a day’s school work being piled on me… being a genius is hard work sometimes. Why I signed up for so many Ap classes is beyond me. Focus. Right.

I felt as though I had all the power of the ground beneath my feet, propelling me forward with every step I took as I ran down the black rubber track. I came up on the finish line well before any of the other runners and slowed my pace down to a walk as I caught my breath.

“Coach looks pissed,” one of the other runners said to me as they came up on the finish line as well.

“When doesn’t he look pissed?” I replied laughing, the others joined in.

“Good point,” another agreed and we began our death march back towards a very angry track coach to see what his issue was. It was probably over me, it was always over me.

“Steele!” he shouted, I’m in trouble now, as always “What the hell was that?!”

“Uhh…a race?” I asked more that I replied.

“A shit race!” he shouted incredibly loudly, his face turning slightly red. One of these days he was just going to explode, I know it. “You’ve ran much better times when you were sick and it was pouring rain!” He sounded genuinely disappointed over this, I still had an amazing time. Probably still better than everyone else in the state. Whatever.

“Sorry, Coach.” I started calmly and carefully. “but we’ve get a big meet tomorrow and I didn’t want to end hurting myself trying to beat a personal best on a practice race,” I replied honestly only slightly stretching the truth, mainly to calm the steaming coach. We had a major meet tomorrow. I had to win all the races I run tomorrow in order to qualify for state. The team was really depending on me. Thankfully, this was a reasonable answer for my coach.

“Whatever.” He huffed, “Everyone! Go take a break, be back here in ten!” he yelled and then stormed off in the direction of the field shed. Probably to find something he could break, he was a very angry little man.

Finally, I thought as I jogged over to the sidelines of the track towards my bag. Digging through it for a few seconds, I found my water bottle. After sitting down on one of the benches, a head of white blonde hair came bounding over to the same bench.

“’Sup Febreze?” I greeted, laughing at my own joke. I came up with that nickname in the first grade and I thought it was so incredibly clever I just never let it go. Her real name is Breeze and when we were little she always smelled like that “fresh air” scent that Febreze always advertised. I came up with it to mainly piss her off. Breeze was the only person who could ever beat me in a race. She just flies down the track. It’s no wonder she’s the captain of the girl’s track team.

It was back in first grade, though, that our rivalry started. We were running little races on the playground… Max, Ethan and I. I, of course, was winning them all; I had a natural talent for running even then. So when Breeze wanted to join, little first grader me thought that no girl could defeat me so we let her take Max’s spot. He was too busy antagonizing Breeze’s friend, Amirah, to run anyway.

The race started out as I had expected, me pulling a fast lead as always and her failing miserably against me. But just as we were coming up on the finish line, she sped by me so fast I could’ve sworn she was flying. She never let me live that down either. Until the day I beat her. And we just kept going back and forth from there. Don’t get us wrong though, we’re the best of friends, only rivals on the track. I wouldn’t mind, though, to be a little something more than friends. I’ve mentioned this to her a few times but she wants absolutely nothing to do with me in those regards. She’s got eyes for a complete and utter loser named Oliver who’s always hanging around these creepy looking emo dudes named Adam and Seth that everyone was fairly certain were dating. Whatever though, I just don’t see what she sees in him. I’m ten times better looking and way closer to her plus I actually like her! Oh well, I guess.

“Nothing much, Tyler,” she replied her grey eyes squinting at me through the bright sunlight. “Our coach saw the boys break for water and that someone needed to calm down you coach and decided that it was a good time for us to break too,” she laughed clear and musically, “I guess I have you to thank for that, what’d you do this time?” she questioned, giggling at the glare I gave her.

“Why do you automatically assume I did something wrong?” I asked faking hurt and dramatically putting my hand over my heart, “you wound me.”

“Oh don’t look so innocent,” she laughed at my display, as I feigned fainting, “It’s always you when the coach is pissed, and so what did you do?”

“I didn’t have a good time on my last practice race,” I smiled at the incredulous look on her pretty face. She was taller than most girls, but not unnaturally so. She was about three inches shorter than me. Her feather light white blonde hair that normally went down to her waist was tied up in a messy ponytail; pin straight as always. Clear grey eyes bright as she laughed at my latest adventure in pissing my coach off. She wasn’t necessarily skinny, but she wasn’t heavy either. More muscular and toned than most, and had smooth features. There were hardly any sharp angles on her at all but she was still beautiful all the same. I had to snap myself out of my trance when I realized she was talking again.

“That’s it? Oh come on, that man needs to calm his ass down,” she snorted.

“Tell me about it,”

“Tell you about what?” A new voice piped up. Both Breeze and I whipped around to find a smiling Max with his fiery red hair shining brighter, if at all possible, in the mid-day sunlight. He stepped to the side to reveal a shining Ethan. I’m not kidding, this dude freaking glows. I mean, I’m a perfectly straight male and even I can admit Ethan is freaking gorgeous. With his perfectly cut golden blonde hair and light brown practically golden eyes. Not to mention his literal perfect build, not too much muscle but enough to know that this guy is toned as hell. Max looked like a lesser human being next to Ethan, even with his own pair of smoldering golden eyes, fiery red hair and near perfect body structure. Ethan was shorter than Max and I, though, so that was some solace.

“That the track coach needs a nap or something.” I replied watching as the middle aged anger management case threw his clip board on the ground as the girl’s track coach tried to reason with him.

“Most definitely,” Ethan agreed.

“So why are you guys here?” Breeze questioned.

“What? Do you not appreciate my company?” Max asked, feigning hurt, Ethan cleared his throat, “I’m sorry, our company?”

“That’s not it,” Breeze said frowning at them, “It’s just a surprise is all, I figured you’d rather go home than hang around the school,”

“Yeah well, I have a reason to be here besides you losers,” Max replied sarcastically.

“And that is?” I asked.

“I can’t remember,” he answered in complete seriousness. I didn’t doubt that, Max was the epitome of a hot head, no joke. He somehow still was incredibly smart though. Then again all four of us were under some strange coincidence. Incredibly academically skilled as well as athletically. Max was a star football player as well as a fantastic wrestler. Ethan, in all his shortness, was somehow the captain of the basketball team. And I’m not exaggerating his shortness, he’s the smallest dude on the team height-wise but is most definitely the strongest. In all honesty he wasn’t that short, taller than most of the kids in our grade, he was just shorter than Max and I so we gave him crap for it.

“Hey Max?” Breeze spoke up interrupting mine and Max’s deep thinking. “Where’s Amirah?” she smiled knowingly as if she knew exactly why Max was here and she probably did, Amirah was her best friend after all. Max scrambled through his pockets searching, most likely, for his phone with a look of realization on his face. When he finally found it, he glanced at the time and swore loudly.

“I’malittlelateforsomethingI’llseeyouguyslaterBye!!” He shouted as he ran away back towards the school. I couldn’t understand a word he said but I figured he was probably late for something Amirah related.

“Wonder what his problem is,” Ethan wondered.

“He’ll be fine whatever it is,” Breeze laughed.

“So now that we know why Max was here, why’re you here?” I asked Ethan. It wasn’t Basketball season so I really had no idea why he was here.

“I don’t know, I just didn’t want to go home just yet and I ended up following Max around,” he answered.

“Alrighty then,” Breeze added in.

“Alright guys! Let’s get back to it!!” shouted my coach less angry than normal so that was a plus.

“Well Ethan, you’ll have to entertain yourself somewhere else, we’ve got to get back to running,” I told him as the coach started unnecessarily blowing his whistle to get everyone to hurry up.

“Alright, well I should probably get home anyway, Mom’s probably got dinner ready by now,” he said checking his watch and then walking away while waving in goodbye.

“Dinner doesn’t sound too bad,” I stated thoughtfully.

“Of course food is the only thing you’re thinking of,” Breeze laughed.

“Haha very funny,” I sarcastically agreed, “you wanna grab dinner after practice?” I offered half expecting her to say no.

“Sure, but I’m still not going on a date with you, we’ll get everyone in on it,” she agreed while starting to walk back to the girl’s track team.

“Fine,” I whined defeated, following her lead and walking back over to my own team.

 

2: Chapter 2: Max

Disclaimer: Probably should’ve mentioned this is the first chapter but better late than never. Any mention of trademarked products or things in general is either coincidental or not meant to be an infringement of copy right, just for story purposes and to make it more realistic. Also any pop cultural references such as video games, movies, people, music and what not are also not meant to be infringed upon. I mean, I’m not making any money off of this so there really shouldn’t be any issues.

On another note: The city these characters live in is Chicago IL. With that being said though, some of the places mentioned are not actual places, they’re just made up for story reasons cuz it needs to be there. Like the highschool they go to is completely made up. If these places actually exist, cool. If not, oh well.

ON WITH THE STORY.

Chapter 2: Max

“Hey Max?” Breeze spoke up, bringing me out from my deep thoughts. I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I had to stay after. I was so excited too! Breeze was looking at me like she knew exactly why I was here. Tyler just looked confused, as always. “Where’s Amirah?” she finished her question, giggling slightly.

Oh right! I promised Amirah I’d go to her swim meet today! What time is it? I began to search my pockets, finally finding the one in which my phone was hiding from me, I took it out and quickly checked the time.

“Shit!” I swore louder than I had planned on and shouted my goodbyes in a jumbled mess of words as I ran back towards the school. The meet started at four o’clock and it was currently three fifty-five. Five minutes to run back to the school from the track and then through the school to the complete other side of the building where the pools were. And this is no small school. High school high (real creative, I know) was a pretty huge school, about maybe a half mile to walk around the entire first floor and about a quarter of a mile to walk around the second.

I burst through the side doors into the school, right into my least favorite hallway, sciences. Even though I’m passing Ap Chemistry with flying colors, I still find it so incredibly boring.

With three minutes left, I came into the main hallway and redirected my course down the athletics branch of the building, while saying a quick greeting to my football coach on the way.

“Burns! What’re you running down the hallway for!?” he shouted back at me.

“Just staying in shape for football season!” I yelled back as I turned the corner to the swimming area.

“Haha! That’s my star player! Keep on it, Burns!” he shouted happily in reply and I had to restrain myself from laughing at the fact that he actually bought that. It was only April, months away from the start of football.

I slowed down to a walk as I came into the swimming area. The temperature instantly increased ten degrees and became so incredibly humid but I liked the heat so it didn’t really bother me. There were two main pools each the standard size for regulated swimming, so a 25? Whatever that meant. I just remember Amirah telling me that one time. I always tried to come to all her meets. She just helped me so much with school work and what not. Not really in the sense of tutoring but more like in keeping me on track as I tried to work through the piles of homework Ap classes gave me. She would just calmly deal with all my rantings and complaints and give me encouragements on why to keep going. It was the least that I could do to support her. Amirah was such a talented swimmer, so graceful and all. These meets could be a real bore sometimes, but it helped that she was at least pretty. That sounds so extremely shallow, wow. But it’s not like I like her or anything like that, we were just friends and I was perfectly happy with just that.

I walked over to the small seating area at the side of the pool, grateful that the meet was just now starting, I wasn’t late, woo!

The meet was pretty uneventful as always, our swimmers (if that’s what you called them) were always ten times better than all the other schools, or I least that’s what it looked like. I really have no idea how this whole thing works. And if our swimmers were ten times better than everyone else then Amirah was a million times better. It’s like she was part fish or something.

At about an hour into the match, Amirah was finally up as one of our last swimmers. Of course she would be last and I would be forced to sit through this whole freaking thing. But I was doing this for her so I would bear through it for her.

She stepped up ready to kick off, her swimsuit a faded black from all the chlorine with a white and gold strip for our school colors. I noticed, as she stepped up, her height compared to the others. She was small, but incredibly skinny. Probably hardly any fat on her at all from all the swimming she’d been doing lately. Her gold swim cap covered her usual curly brown hair and black goggles masked her piercing blue eyes.

The whistle blew signaling for them to push off and Amirah was gone. She was only swimming the 100 today, still have no idea what that means. But the way she explained it once was that she had to swim four laps of the pool.

She swam her race in just over a minute. You would think that four laps would take longer but nope, one minute and ten seconds. That was it, that’s as long as it took her. The rest of the times were more close to two minutes. She most definitely won the meet today, and that meant her team did as well. There was most definitely something magical about her swimming.

She climbed up out of the water and started looking around the crowds. I wasn’t exactly sure who she was looking for but when she found me and I waved she immediately looked started and embarrassed and started trying to cover herself up. She had a one piece swimsuit on so I really wasn’t sure why she was doing that but I laughed at her antics anyway. Always so shy for no reason.

I got up off my seat and walked towards her as she gathered her stuff and pull off her swim cap letting her wet brown hair cascade down her back. Her hair wasn’t very long, definitely shorter than Breeze’s, Amirah’s went down to the middle of her back.

She started to head to the girl’s locker room to change but I got to her before she could. She squeaked loudly when I suddenly appeared in front of her. She was always so shy, even around me.

“Max!” she stuttered, “What’re you doing here?”

“The same reason why I’m always here, to watch you swim,” I replied rolling my eyes dramatically so she knew I was only kidding and wasn’t really annoyed.

“Oh right,” she said looking embarrassed. “You don’t have to, you know,”

“I know, but it’s the least I can do,” I assured her smiling. She looked away, blushing. She was always blushing, always so shy.

“T-thanks,” she stuttered out.

“It’s not a problem really,” I laughed, we always went through this. She just couldn’t understand why I wanted to come to these boring things, no matter how many times I told her.

“Come on, let’s get out of the middle of the walkway, the boy’s swim meet’ll be starting soon,” She requested as she lead the way to the side wall. True to her word, the boy’s swim team flooded out of their locker room starting to warm up. I noticed a few of the boys looking over at the two of us, mainly Amirah. I knew she was pretty but you don’t need to stare, jeeze some people were rude. Interrupting my glaring at the swimmers, my phone started going off. Fishing through my pocket I found the device to see a text from Tyler.

“You wanna go grab some dinner after Amirah’s swim meet?” I snorted, of course I wanted dinner. Looking at the time it was around five thirty, about time I had dinner anyway.

“Yeah sure,” I replied quickly, looking over to Amirah. She had her phone out as well.

“Who’s that?” I questioned, moving to look over her shoulder. She jumped slightly when I spoke and I laughed at her antics.

“Breeze, she wants to know if I want dinner with Tyler and her,” She answered stepping away from me slightly.

“Oh, Tyler just asked me if I wanted to go too,” I told her, “We can go together as soon as you get dressed,”

“I-I don’t know,” She started, “my mom may want me home for dinner…” I rolled my eyes. Amirah’s mom, Mrs. Rivera was always nagging her daughter to get out more. Amirah had such great friends, she always said, why she doesn’t go out with them is the question.

“Oh that’s a lame excuse and you know it,” I countered and started pushing her towards the girl’s locker room.

“W-what are you doing?!” she asked sounding nervous.

“Leading you to the locker room so you can get changed” I answered simply and she dug her heels into the ground, “What’re you doing?” I questioned and stopped pushing her.

“I can walk to the locker room myself thank you,” she replied heading into the room.

Haha I’m good at this. I marveled at my trick and then sat down on the floor right outside the door waiting for her to come out so we could go eat. 

3: Chapter 3: Ethan

Chapter 3: Ethan

I waved goodbye as I left Tyler and Breeze to their running. I really didn't have anything better to do afterwards so I decided just to go home. Thinking back, I really didn't know why I stayed after school in the first place. I didn't have a reason like Max or the rest of my friends did. Whatever, I thought as I started on the sidewalk that would take me home from the school. That's when I noticed a little ways ahead on the same path; a familiar figure clad in a black hoodie and matching jeans.

Adam: ugh I don't like that guy. He just pisses me off for no reason. I've got no clue why I hate him so much but I do and I wasn't about to pass up a chance to antagonize the boy. His dyed black hair shone in the sunlight, it looked like he hadn't taken a shower in weeks, his hair was that messy. What I couldn't understand, though, was what kind of idiot wears a long sleeve black hoodie in freaking sunny 80 degree weather. Stupid.

Shaking those thoughts aside, I picked up my pace to catch up to Adam but of course the universe was out to get me.

"Ethan!" A high pitched girl's voice shouted. I sighed loudly in annoyance before turning around to face my doom with a fake polite smile.

What's up Azalea?" I asked hiding my annoyance well. I had a lot of practice after all.

"Glad I caught you," she smiled sweetly. The girl really did like me, which is unsurprising, but I couldn't stand her. It's not like she wasn't pretty or anything. She was incredibly beautiful… in an unnatural kinda way. Her so called "natural" dark emerald green hair made everyone do a double take as she walked by. Then one would notice pointed features, sharp but delicate, carved in porcelain skin. No it certainly wasn't her looks that drove me away, and it wasn't her personality either. She was kind, caring and always knew just what to say to make someone feel better. Yeah, no, it was her obsession with plants that she never shut up about that made most people, including myself, want to avoid her. It was non-stop talking, too, once you got her started. And it didn't help my cause that my friends, namely Breeze and Tyler, have continually tried to set the two of us up for months now. Only further leading the girl to believe that I returned her feelings when I really, really didn't. I mean, I get where my friends are coming from. I'm a sixteen year old guy who has never gone out with anyone before, kind of a rare thing. I didn't care though; I just hadn't found anyone who interested me.

"Oh really?" I replied to her, "What for?"

"I was just wondering… if… if maybe you would want to hang out sometime?" She asked, I could practically feel the hope dripping from her voice as she looked anywhere but me. Always the same embarrassment from her. One would think that after the third or fourth time I made up an excuse not to go out with her she would take the hint. But nope, here we were again. I looked behind me, down the path, to see that Adam hadn't gotten too far. If I end this quickly I can still catch up to him no problem. I thought while turning back to her. She still wasn't looking at me; she had to know what my answer was going to be.

"I'm really sorry Azalea," I started, "but I've really got to get home quickly today, maybe we could talk about this some other time?" Might as well get her hopes up a little, she looked so defeated when I started. I'm not completely heartless.

"Alright, cool!" She laughed happily and I instantly regretted my decision. This means I’ll have to talk to her again soon. I smiled at her nonetheless before saying goodbye and then running in the direction Adam was going. I would so much rather be forced to hang out with Adam than to have to listen to Azalea go on about plants for the duration of the date, that's how badly I couldn't stand that girl.

Quickly and easily, I caught up to Adam but he didn't know I was there due to the extremely harmful level his music was blasting through his ear buds. I could hear very clearly the beat of heavy and fast drums and the screams of guitars. Smiling at my devious plot to psyche the dude out, I tapped on his shoulder lightly. He jumped slightly, not expecting me and instantly pulled out an ear bud (I could really hear the music now, some heavy metal song that would scare any child's mother to their graves) and looked around nervously. Such a twitchy dud, always acting paranoid. When his eyes landed on me, I waved at him and his eyes widened. He's definitely not expecting this one.

"Hey Adam," I started cheerfully, faking it of course. I don't like this dude, remember? "What's up?"

He looked at me warily; he knew I was faking this. What he's going to do about it is the question.

"Walking home from soccer practice," he answered still giving me sideways glances with his blood red eyes (most likely contacts, though he swears they're not, whatever). I have to hold my comments back from him, "soccer practice" yeah right. No one's actually ever come forth saying that this guy is actually on the soccer team, so literally no one believes him.

He gestured, sensing my disbelief, to his unsurprisingly black sports bag. You're not fooling anyone.

"That's fun, I just got back from Breeze and Tyler's track practice," I told him still keeping the conversation as if I were talking to a friend.

"Uhhh… why?" He asked confusion clear on his face and in his voice.

"I don't really know myself," I said truthfully.

"Well, that's… not good?" He asked more than said. The poor guy didn't know what was going on.

"No, it isn't," I agreed and smiled at how uncomfortable he was getting. He was fidgety, wringing his hands together or messing with his bangs that always fell into his eyes. He eventually settled for picking at the cuticles on his thumbs.

“Can I ask…?” He trailed off, “w-why you’re doing this?” He stutters now too, damn I was good at this.

“What’d you mean?” I asked innocently.

“Talking to me a-as i-if we were f-friends,” wow he was a wreck. “Why?” He was no fun anymore so I decided to give up on the charade.

“Because I wanted to psyche you out…and by the looks of it, it worked,” I laughed, noticing that he looked disappointed for a moment; eyes cast down to look at the ground and then looking back up at me clearly terrified.

“Oh,” is all he said and I rolled my eyes, annoyed. God he was boring.

“Now that we’re back to normal,” I began, “Why the hell did you decide to wear a long sleeved black hoodie in fucking 80 degree weather? What? Got something to hide?” I sneered, making fun of the emo stereotype that he undoubtedly fills, except he doesn’t have the guts to do something like that. Even so I’ll still make fun of him for being an idiot.

Adam didn’t say anything after that though, and he started walking faster with his head down, eyes watching the ground as he went. He was trying to ignore me! Little fucker, so annoying. I matched his pace to catch up to him. By the time I fell in line with him again we were already at his house. Damn it, I thought.

He was about to turn to walk up to his house when I reached out and shoved his head down hard, he tripped over himself and yelped in surprise as he practically booked it into his house. I did, however, take notice that his hair was uncharacteristically soft and fluffier than one would think. Maybe he was just sweaty from his poor wardrobe choices. Why the hell would I care if his disgustingly greasy dyed black hair is soft or not? I instantly caught myself. I don’t understand why I notice a lot of stupid, meaningless things about this guy like that. I guess it really didn’t matter. I pushed aside these thoughts, though, in favor of walking to my own house instead of stupidly standing outside of Adam’s. My house, conveniently or inconveniently had yet to be determined, was right next door to Adam’s. I walked over to my house and inside. Once there I’m immediately greeted by my parents. They aren’t actually my parents though. I was adopted at a pretty young age by a young married gay couple, yeah I had two dads. I came to terms with that a long time ago so it barely registered as strange anymore. Recently, though, one of them started wanted us to call him mom. Apparently he was getting frustrated when my sister or I called out “dad” but didn’t specify which one we wanted or needed. Whatever, it was just easier to go along with it than to argue. He’ll be wanting us to call him “dad” again soon anyway.

You know, come to think of it, all of my close friends were adopted…strange coincidence. Tyler, like me, was adopted at a young age but unlike me he has both an actual mother and father. Breeze was left on an older couple’s doorstep who weren’t to have children of their own when she was just a baby. Amirah was only adopted two years ago at the beginning of freshmen year by a single mother who needed a role model for her younger kids since she was always working to provide for them. And Max… well Max was adopted three different times. But on account of his anger issues and uncanny ability to blow things up accidently, they all brought him back to the group home they found him at. He doesn’t really care about that though. He seems to like to live in the apartment building that is his group home. Oh well. Whatever floats his boat.

“Welcome home!” “Mom” shouted as I took my shoes off.

“Hi,” I replied walking into the kitchen to find my sister at the counter already working on homework. She, like me, was also adopted obviously. But she was only thirteen while I was sixteen soon to be seventeen.

“Just tell me if you need help,” I offered to her as I walked by heading upstairs to my room.

“Yessir!” she mock saluted at me. I laughed and continued walking to my sanctuary. Ugh it was so hard faking contentment all day, my life was so boring and uneventful. Perfect in every aspect but that’s why it’s so damn boring. I wasn’t depressed or anything like that though, I’ll leave that to Adam. I just wished something eventful could happen. Speaking of Adam, harassing him was about one of the only things that added color to the usual greyness.

I collapsed on my bed, looking out the window in my room and directly into the window next door. The houses here, being in the inner city, were extremely close together. And I could see right into the room next door. It was a bedroom, Adam’s to be specific. How convenient. I closed my eyes wanting to sleep until da- I mean “mom” had dinner ready. No such luck, however, as the second I closed my eyes my phone went off. Blowing a stand of blond hair out of eyes frustrated, I got up off my bed. I need a haircut, I thought absentmindedly as I found my phone sitting on my desk. Checking the device, I have a text from Tyler.

“Wanna have dinner with us? Max and Amirah are coming too. Oh and Breeze is here with me already”

I’ve got nothing better to do, I decide.

“Sure… be right over” then I thought about it for a minute, “Wait where will I be right over?”

“Oh right, the restaurant on the corner by the school,”

Ugh that restaurant was a fast food place, of course Tyler would pick to eat there. Did I really want to go eat junk food? It’s something to do, to get out of the house. Weren’t you just saying you were bored to death a second ago? I reminded myself.  

“Alright, now I’ll be right over.”