Run, Girl (If You Can)

Chapter 122: I'm His Evil Clone

Keeley and Valentina lay around in their pajamas watching a telenovela on Saturday as Jennica was off auditioning. It was one of those rare and beautiful times where neither of them had anything pressing to do and decided to take a nice break.

It was obvious they had been at it for hours. Their hair was a mess from lying on their sides, they had created a literal nest of blankets, and snack wrappers were scattered everywhere on the ground. Molly was stretched out on top of at least three.

"Don't do it Jorge!" Valentina pleaded.

The male lead was about to strangle Ana Maria, who confessed that her baby was Felipe's after they had already run off together.

"She shouldn't have lied," Keeley pointed out before stuffing another handful of microwave popcorn into her mouth.

"Lying is a valid reason to be murdered now?"

As someone who had been murdered once, Keeley didn't think there were any valid reasons for that. "No, but this is a TV show. You're applying real world logic to something fake."

Valentina huffed. "Do you have to be such a realist? Let me be dramatic in peace."

She laughed and tossed some popcorn at her friend. "Okay, okay. Have fun being dramatic."

"Thank you."

They made their way through two more episodes before the doorbell rang. As Valentina's eyes were glued to the screen, riveted, Keeley was the one to answer the door. She peered through the eyehole first and nearly had a heart attack.

Aaron! What was he doing at her apartment?!

She noticed her phone on the kitchen table, which had been set on silent. Thirteen missed messages. Oh no.

He knocked again.

"Keeley, why haven't you answered the door?" Valentina asked irritably. "I'm trying to watch here."

"I'll get rid of them," she said faintly.

She didn't want to see Aaron anyway but she looked terrible! How embarrassing.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and tried to appear like she wasn't about to die of mortification. "Aaron! What are you doing here?"

"You didn't answer your phone. I thought something happened to you," he said flatly.

The sound of people dramatically yelling at each other in Spanish could be heard through the open door. Even worse, Aaron could see the blanket nest and junk food wrappers. Kill her now.

She shut the door behind her and stepped into the hall to hide the mess before staring at her fuzzy sock covered feet. "Sorry, it was on silent in the other room. We're having a marathon."

"Of what?"

"Los Valientes e Implacables," she muttered red-faced.

"The Brave and the Relentless?"

Her desire to have the floor swallow her up increased. "It's a telenovela…my roommate is Peruvian and she introduced them to me our freshman year of college."

"You've been living together that long? I want to meet her," he said resolutely.

No no no no no. That would be a terrible idea for so many reasons but the biggest one is that Valentina would immediately know he was the ex she mentioned.

"She's in her pajamas; she would be embarrassed," she improvised.

"You're in your pajamas as well," Aaron pointed out.

Yeah, and she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. She was wearing an extra-extra-large NYU sweatshirt and a pair of thick fleece pajama pants printed with cupcakes.

"I am embarrassed! Are you too dense to see that?!"

"No but I don't know why you would be. You look cute."

If this were a movie, there would have been a record scratch and a freeze frame. That was how thrown off Keeley was by his words. Cute…had he EVER called her cute in either life? Cute was a word that shouldn't even be in his dictionary!

She blinked several times and shook her head as if it were an illusion so she could resume the conversation and get rid of him as quickly as possible. She didn't have time to process that right now.

"I didn't have time to read your messages just now…what did you want?"

"I got back two days ago and I missed you so I wanted to know if you would join me for dinner," he stated emotionlessly. Only Aaron could say a nice sentiment like 'I missed you' in such a tone.

But…he missed her? Was this some kind of joke? She hadn't believed he was capable of missing someone because of his natural coldness and the fact that he never said sentimental things like that even when they were together.

"You missed me," she repeated back flatly. "Really?"

Aaron nodded seriously. "Yes. You didn't text me back very often because you were busy and I wasn't here to visit you at the lab so I missed you."

What was life? This was by far the most bizarre thing she had ever heard come out of his mouth. It bounced around in her skull.

I missed you, I missed you, I missed you.

"O…kay…Well, you've seen me so I should probably get back inside. Valentina will be wondering where I got off to," Keeley lied. She wouldn't even notice her absence while the telenovela was on.

"Don't you want your souvenir?"

She had completely forgotten about that but it didn't matter right now. If she took it, would he leave faster? "Sure! Hand it over."

He shrugged. "I forgot it at home."

Then why did he bring it up?! Aaron was dancing on her last nerve. "Then why—"

"We should go back and get it. You can have dinner at my place."

Of course. There was always something with him. Keeley weighed her options. If she did this now, she wouldn't have to see him again later.

"Okay, just let me go get dressed," she said, slightly defeated. So much for her relaxing Saturday.

He scooped her up into his arms and began walking toward the elevator.

"Aaron!" Keeley yelped. "What are you doing?!"

"If I carry you, your socks won't get dirty," he said calmly.

"Or you could let me get shoes; are you crazy?! I can't go out like this!"

It was too late. They were already in the elevator. She sulked as she put her arms around his neck for further support.

"I hate you."

"I know."

"You're the worst."

"I know that too."

"You could have just let me get my shoes; it's not like I was going to go inside and lock you out or something." Being in pajamas in public was embarrassing enough but carrying her because she didn't have shoes was too over the top.

Aaron's voice was flat as ever when he said "Variety is the spice of life."

He always hated when she tried to shake things up! "…who are you and what did you do to Aaron Hale."

"I'm his evil clone," he deadpanned.

"If anything, you're the less evil clone," she muttered under her breath, making him laugh.

A real laugh! What on earth was happening right now?! The last ten minutes had been like an episode of the Twilight Zone!