dedicated to an og member of the 'cahill series', Katie. This girl sent me snaps of the five seconds of summer concert in toronto too bless her. Much love for you kathleencahill ❤️

Chapter Four: I'm Going To Die of Combustion.

SYDNEY ACOSTA WAS ONE of my favorite people in the entire world. Hands down. She was that best friend that understood you inside and out, the one you'd send everything to and she'd reply as fast as she could over text if it was serious. Or if it was insanely serious, she would call fast as the message that was sent.

She was irreplaceable.

She was also currently a mess.

"What happened this week?" Sydney asked on my phone but she was distracted. I would be distracted too if I had a TV on in the background along with rap music- that most definitely did not go with the image of her being a ballet dancer-and I was pretty sure a show was playing from her laptop.

I was able to get all that from a phone conversation with her. She worked best when she was in this zone. It probably helped since she was signing papers for a new dance tour she was going to be on during the summer.

I got out of the bathroom, not even bothered by all the sounds in the background as I was ready for a night to crawl into bed. Crawl into bed and watch a movie, that is. Not sleep.

"At my little get together, Dani had the nerve to ask if Keith and I talked." Even saying his name left a sour taste in my mouth. I think I needed to brush my teeth again. I almost did a U-turn to my bathroom before I opted out heading towards my dresser.

"Isn't that Krystal's friend? Does she even know you?" Okay, good. She understood how ridiculous it would be to even consider asking me that question.

I grabbed my bonnet, putting my hair underneath it and feeling the band of it against the top of my forehead. The first night Krystal had ever stayed over with me back in Los Angeles, her eyes widened when I took out my bonnet to sleep and she stared at it for a good hour while I was wearing it. Then she proceeded to ask. After explaining to her that it basically protects your hair when you sleep, Krystal now owns different colored ones.

My impact.

"Clearly, she doesn't," I said, getting on my bed and powering on my laptop. "Even worse, she kept assuming I was going to go crazy over her asking me the question. It's almost as if she was thinking I was going to go on a rage and hit her or something. Sound familiar?"

I could imagine Sydney rolling her eyes as the sound of a TV show stopped, leaving only possibly the TV and the music. "Two years ago. That crazy bitch, Stef."

"Exactly." Stef was a girl who had been friends with after meeting her at the gym. Little did I know that Stef was trying to set me up the entire time and wanted to sue me for assault when I have never hit her or anyone in my entire life. This was because she considered me to be an easy target.

Why?

Because I was a black woman in western society.

This apparently meant I was easily angered and apparently hits anyone who wrongs me.

What a horrible stereotype.

I've never even been in a fight my entire life. I've been close but the fights I have gotten involved with were verbal, never physical. No one was worth the risk of breaking a nail over.

"I'm already sensing a headache remembering that annoying dumbass," Sydney sighed, and I almost laughed. That was the thing about Sydney and me. Whenever something stressed us out, no matter where we were, it wasn't hard for us to feel the effect or the stress it caused on the other. "How's the movie? Do you like the feel?"

"Yeah, everything is pretty smooth," I told her, typing in my password. "I'm working with Jake and that makes everything better."

"Wait," her sudden excitement at our mutual friend's name made the sound of what I knew was the TV come to a stop, leaving the music. "Jake's in the movie?"

"Yup."

"Ugh, I love him. Next time you come to New York, bring him. He's the light of my life."

"I thought that was me." I joked.

"You're like a close second."

I rolled my eyes, smiling as she laughed. "The only annoying thing is the screenwriter."

"The screenwriter? What did they do?"

"He's just irritating. He came in the first day with a black eye that he got over this girl's boyfriend after sleeping with her, however, he didn't know that the girl had a boyfriend."

"Interesting."

"Very."

There was a pause in our conversation and I settled in my bed, waiting for what Sydney was going to say. "He irritates you?" She asked slowly.

"Yeah, but I don't want to get into that."

"Got it," She dismissed it and I let out a thankful breath that we could move on from the topic when she decided to press the rewind button. "Is he attractive, though? To you?"

I sighed, heading over to Netflix. "Very."

"Now that's interesting."

"I don't care about the hot screenwriter. Just talking about him irritates me. What makes things worse is that Angie made me her wing woman without even meeting the guy. I can already sense that we're going to have to talk more because he could just want to get into her pants."

"He's just a hookup kind of guy?"

"I don't want to assume," I admitted, also opening up my email in another tab. "Maybe he could be capable of a relationship but when I said he doesn't seem like the committed type he got quiet. Then he moved on."

"Maybe Angie could change that."

"I don't think it really matters because Angie would be more than okay with just sleeping with him." If I knew my friend as well as I did, she would be very happy with that.

"If he's as attractive as you're all making him out to be then whatever you say."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," I suddenly remembered the key thing I had wanted to tell her. "Giulio basically told me that he wants a relationship with me."

Whatever Sydney was doing while talking to me, she probably stopped doing because her voice got very high and the music finally came to a stop. It got quiet on her side. "Shut up."

"I'm not lying." Sydney hung up the call and before I knew it she popped up my laptop screen through video chat seconds later.

My best friend's beautiful dark brown curly hair was tumbled around her shoulders and she was in the process of tying it up into a bun that ended up flopping on the side of her head. The expression on her face was filled with surprise.

Her light was on and I could see her clearly in front of me, sitting on the couch of her living room. She had a pen behind her ear and papers everywhere. I could see a plate of food on the left of her and her speaker system on the other side. I felt like everything on her couch was about to fall off if she moved just slightly. Sydney was probably one of the most interesting people I've ever met.

And seen.

In addition to her long beautiful hair, my gorgeous friend was a mixture of Filipino, South African, and Dominican descent. Her skin a dark golden brown and her eyes so dark they could they could pass off as black.

A muffled yell in the background cut off our conversation. She looked over the laptop as I realized someone had entered the room. "What?"

"I'm going to combust." I heard the guy groan.

She gave him a look, her attitude showing bright as the day was today when she scanned him up and down. "No one told you to eat all those chicken wings."

"Can I please-"

She cut him off with a stern look, almost as if she was a mother talking to a child. Her almost 25-year-old child. "You are not using my bathroom, Zen."

Zen. As Sydney and I had gone to high school together for a short time, Zen and I had gone to that same high school for technically four years. He and Sydney had become friends during the final year and they moved to New York shortly after school ended for post-secondary. Then about a couple of years after they moved in together as Zen studied film at New York University and Sydney did dance at Julliard.

Hearing their voices or seeing them together always gave me a flashback at high school all those years ago. It wasn't truly ironic where we all ended up now.

We had attended an art school back home called Hamilton Academy of the Arts.

I entered the school as an actress and ended up as an actress.

Sydney entered as a dancer and ended up as a dancer.

Zen entered the school as one of the tech geeks and ended up as...one of the tech geeks. Yeah, I never really processed what his profession was. I just knew he made good money doing what he loved.

Zen made a noise that sounded like a six-year-old on the verge of throwing a tantrum for candy. "But-"

She narrowed her eyes at him this time, shutting him down once again. Even I wouldn't test Sydney when she was getting this serious about a topic. "You have your own."

"That's why I don't want to combust in my own bathroom." I heard him say and I was waiting to hear him stomp on the ground.

"Can you stop saying combust and just go to your bathroom? Better yet, go outside. I don't care, just stay away from my bathroom." I held in my laughter at her words. It ridiculous when she wasn't having it with Zen's antics.

"All this because he ate chicken wings?" I asked.

"He ate a tub of spicy chicken wings," Sydney told me, and I cringed. "He claimed it wasn't spicy enough and put so much hot sauce his face started turning red."

Sydney's laptop shifted, and she disappeared from my view, replaced with Zen's face.

Zen, whose original name is Matthew, had gone from I'm an emo punk goth boy to I'm a hot geek evolution in a matter of years. I remember when he used to only wear black and had piercings on his face that made him slightly more intimidating. The piercings he no longer wore on his face, but we had similar industrial bar ear piercings. With a buzzcut, pretty brown eyes, and a nice smile he probably didn't know he had, Zen was a catch. Not my type of guy, but he was a catch.

"Hey." He said to me, flashing me a cheeky grin.

"Give her back the laptop," I told him.

He faked a hurt expression. "You're not going to say hi to your friend?"

"Your friend texted you this morning," I said, referring to myself in the third person. "That's enough. Give it back to Sydney and go combust in your bathroom."

"Can you both stop saying combust?" I heard Sydney say.

"It seems like the right thing to say," Zen said.

"Anyways," Sydney sounded as if she was fully trying to pull away from the combustion topic. "What did Giulio say?"

"Giulio? Italian actor guy?" Zen asked, looking confused. How many Giulio's did the guy know?

"We always knew he had a thing for you," Sydney said. "That's what happens when you're together. A lot. Multiple times-"

"Okay," I exclaimed. "I get it. No strings attached always involves someone having feelings. You would know."

Zen put the laptop down and I could finally see them clearly. Well, all I saw was Zen's legs because he was in the process of moving all the papers to the side. He took a seat next to Sydney, leaning back on the couch. He made a hissing noise. "She pulled out the facts."

Sydney rolled her eyes. "You mean Lucas?"

"Which other man would I be talking about?" I asked.

Lucas Cahill was Sydney's high school love. Besides being her high school love, Lucas Cahill also came from an insanely rich family that included many other siblings from what I remember. He also had a twin, Joey Cahill who we went to high school with. But he wasn't the point. After high school, he had gone to Japan as an artist while Sydney had moved to New York to become a dancer. As a result, one of my favorite couples had broken up. However, a little over last year Sydney had bumped into Lucas while he was in New York and-

"You had sex with him."

Sydney was trying to fix her bun again. She always played with her hair whenever we talked about something like this. She raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"Consistently. Every time he came back to New York that year."

"And you're still not together," Zen muttered, his eyes still closed.

"Lucas and I are just really different people now," She said, and I knew she was right. "I'm happy we're friends though. Here's the thing. Lucas and I talked about what we were doing and stopped when feelings, many different feelings that would not work out due to how different we are as people, started coming back. You and Giulio have never talked about it. You just jump each other's bones when you get the chance."

"Giulio telling you that he's into you isn't that surprising," Zen said. Then he sat straight up, opening his eyes and leaning forward. "Wait, how did it escalate?"

"He told me he had feelings for me. Then, he had suggested that I have a new flame, so everyone would stop asking me the Keith questions."

"And that would be him? He wants you bad. Wow. And public." Zen shook his head in disbelief.

"I was just, surprised. It didn't make sense where it was coming from." Giulio and I's fling has been occurring for a long time/ It never processed in my mind that there was a possibility he wanted something more to come out of it. I felt guilt make its way into the pit of my stomach.

Zen made a face, "It was kind of like he fell in love with your pleasure haven."

I narrowed my eyes at Zen. "Pleasure haven? Did you just-anyways, I don't care. I'm not interested. Nor, am I interested in anything remotely involving Keith."

Sydney and Zen exchanged a look. Of course, they knew that. There was no point in me saying it. I said in reassurance for myself, not for them. When I found out about Keith cheating, my original home was not the first place I went to. I had made my way to New York because Sydney was there along with my friends. Believe or not, there were some things my friends in California couldn't do that I knew they would.

Zen groaned, hugging his stomach. Sydney shoved him, "Will you go to the damn bathroom?"

He groaned even louder, grabbing a pillow and shoved his face against it. "I'm going to die of combustion."

I cringed. "Can you not?"

Zen put the pillow down, his face in the worst grimace I've ever seen. "I'm never eating anything spicy ever again." He got up and ran. He bolted faster than I had ever seen him run.

Zen wasn't an athletic person. He spent most of the time I had known him as a computer geek, or as he used to call himself, a tech wizard. Him running was a rare occasion.

Sydney looked over the camera. "NOT MY-" The door slammed shut and she sighed. "Bathroom. Holy shit, man."

I let out a laugh and she glared at me. "Sorry. You're not seeing the Cahill anytime soon, are you?"

Sydney shook her head, "Not any time soon."

"Where is he now?"

"In France doing some promotion while getting inspiration."

"All the time he had spent with you wasn't inspiration enough?" I teased.

Sydney laughed. "Shut up."

"Just saying."

"But uh," Sydney let her hair loose from the bun she had, her thick curly hair falling over her shoulders. "I have a date tomorrow."

My eyebrow rose. "Sydney Acosta? A date?"

"I'd shove you if you were beside me. But, yeah." She looked through her phone. "I sent you a picture."

I immediately checked my phone and smiled wide at the picture. "He's cute, what the heck."

"And he's really nice. He works with Zen and asked me out yesterday."

"Where's he taking you?"

"Bowling. I've never gone bowling for a date, so this should be interesting."

"Bowling's fun."

"You can't even say that. You hate bowling. You almost threw a bowling ball at Zen when we went two years ago."

"That's because Zen was annoying me, and Wesley kept getting strikes. You literally pushed Wesley back after he got three in a row. Don't come for me, sis." Sydney grinned at the memory. Wesley was one of our other friends who had known Sydney the longest because he went to school with her before she moved to go to high school where Zen and I attended. He worked back in Canada as a carpenter.

Sydney looked down at her paper. "What time do you have to be on set tomorrow?"

"Ten."

"So, you're going to go to sleep at," She trailed off, looking down at her phone to check our time zone difference. "nine o'clock."

"I was going to watch a movie actually."

She grinned. "I'll leave you to it. I'll text you after my date tomorrow."

"I want all details."

"Who else do I tell all the details too, you dumbass?"

"Who else do I take that attitude from, you whore?"

She smiled. "Bye, Oct."

"Bye."

When I hung up the call and got my go-to action movie set up on my laptop, Angie burst into my room and did a jump onto my bed. "Caleb."

I rolled my eyes at the mention of his name. "What about him?"

"Okay, so we talked for, like, three hours before his agent made him do a phone interview. Tavi, he's so..." She made that dreamy look on her face and I wanted to snap her back to the real world.

"He's just a guy." I reminded her, and she crawled in beside me looking like she wasn't going to leave anytime soon.

"But he's nice, you know?" I nodded mindlessly as she looked through her phone before asking, "Do you think he's not a relationship kind of guy?"

"Maybe if you hang out with him enough, you'll find out." What I said was true. She'll know plus there was the option of just asking him if he ever wanted to be in a relationship. She could take that route.

"Do you think he sleeps around?" Clearly, my movie wasn't going to be watched at this point if we're on a segment of my life called The Caleb Show.

I closed my laptop, lying down in my bed. "You know, even if he does sleep around that just means he has more experience. That could be a good thing." I suggested.

"Experience?"

"Yeah," I said, wondering what the hell I was trying to do. "If he's not into a relationship then that's just him. But do you want a relationship, or do you just want fun?"

I already knew Angie's answer. I don't even know why I asked.

"Fun." She said slowly. Of course. "But relationships are a nice outcome of fun."

"Caleb seems like the fun type. Just make sure if you do some fun things that lead to the epitome of fun things, then make sure he's been tested and clean. That's all I'm saying."

There was a moment of silence between Angie and I before she spoke up again. "Did you see his tattoos?"

"They're kind of hard to miss, Ang." Especially the sleeve one.

But my own thoughts were interrupted when someone else charged through my bedroom door. I watched as Krystal leaped from where she ran in and landed on her back in my bed. "I shouldn't have quit long jump back in the day."

"Maybe you can do the world a favor and not use my bed as a trampoline."

"The world? Sis, that's just doing you a favor."

"Krystal, shut up." I smashed my pillow over her face and she laughed, getting under the covers with me.

"What are we watching?"

"I was going to a movie. Angie and you were going to leave."

"She's kicking us out?" Angie asked.

"Maybe she's kicking us out for another reason. Maybe she's kicking us out for her own reasons instead. For herself. For her thoughts. Where's the porn?" Krystal tried snatching my laptop and I swatted at her hands faster than I ever had.

"There's none of that," I exclaimed.

"Liar," Angie muttered, well-aware of who I was.

"Anyways." I eagerly tried changing the conversation as I changed the movie and started scrolling to find one suitable for all of our tastes.

"What are we talking about?" Krystal asked, laying on her stomach on the other side of me.

"Caleb," Angie said rolling onto her back, her phone on her chest and her eyes looking up at the ceiling.

"The Henderson guy, right? Bring him around sometime. I want to see his face."

I scoffed, glancing at Krystal. "Just his face?"

"And other parts if he wants but right now I just wanna see the face."

I sighed out loud, not believing that we were talking about this guy in my own room. At least take the conversation somewhere else as I am trying to relax. "If you both don't change the topic I will pick up and throw you both outside."

Krystal made a face and looked at Angie over me. "What's wrong with her?"

"She doesn't like Caleb."

"Yikes," Krystal hissed. "Poor Caleb. He has to face the wrath that is Octavia."

"Anyways!" I sighed, leaning back so my body was against the headboard. I dragged my pillows sorting them, so they were all around me as I spoke, "Either you two leave or someone goes downstairs and makes popcorn and get some water, and then you both can stay."

Angie and Krystal both had the same 'we're not going to do shit' expressions on their face and I grinned at my friends. "Please."

Obviously, some of us have a different perspective as to how Octavia looks like. A lot of you said Normani and I totally see what you're talking about. She made sense to be casted. GoldLinkaa named a couple and user glowprincess on instagram who's pic I added at the top hit me like a truck. I was like 'YES, YES, THIS IS WHAT I'M GOING FOR. THIS IS WHO I WANT' as if all of a sudden I'm a casting agent or something lmaoo. But Normani or her or anyone that similarily looks like them I love that.

But as the question of who would be Octavia occurred in the comments, some of you also made good points. Especially olishaaaaaaaa . A lot of you kept pointing out light skin characters when it was clear that Octavia had dark skin, a skin color that I may add isn't well approached in terms of media which is why when a lot of you think a young black woman you automatically think 'ZENDAYA' or 'AMANDLA' and I get it. They're awesome actors and I love them.

However, Octavia is darkskin.

This does not erase any part of blackness Zendaya or Amandla have but they are not darkskin black people. They are lightskin black people. I thought I wanted to make that clear in case some of you weren't aware. It's one of the reasons why I put Octavia as the main character and there's reasons as to why she is the main character of this story. It literally could have been any other woman, any other girl but no, it's Octavia.

But let me not go down that road for today legends. Adios amigos for now. Update soon. Caleb will appear in the next.

-nikki