I Told The Moon About You

6: Pluto

SIX
Pluto

"How was it?"

Elias looked at Mars. She was playing a game on her phone, the collar of her shirt pulled over half her face. She glanced at him when he spoke, then sighed, pausing whatever it was she was playing.

"It was okay," she admitted. "I felt kinda left out."

Elias frowned. "Why? What happened?" He sat down on the other end of the couch, giving her a curious look.

"They've all known each other since like, kindergarten apparently," she explained, scrunching her nose. "They probably didn't mean to, but... They kinda left me out. Had all these inside jokes and stories I couldn't understand or relate to."

"Mars..."

"I still had fun!" she quickly said. "It just wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, I guess."

"Did anything good come out of it?" He reached out and gently tucked her hair back, tapping her nose with his thumb as he pulled his hand away. It made her smile, which was what he had been hoping for.

She nodded. "The pool was fun. And we watched movies and ate pizza. This one girl was trying her best to include me, which was nice. Her name is Lily."

"Yeah?"

"Mhm," Mars hummed. "She plays the game I play, too. She was cool. I wish I would've gotten her Snapchat or something."

Elias leaned back. "Well, you'll see her at school, right? Ask then."

"What if she doesn't wanna be friends with me?" Mars brought her nails to her mouth, biting them, and Elias had to grab her wrist to get her to stop. That was a habit that was difficult to break once it started. "What if she was just being nice?"

Elias flicked her forehead. She yelped, glaring at him and rubbing the spot with a frown. "What the heck was that for?"

"Next time you see her, you're going to say hi, okay?" Elias gave her a stern look. "That's how you make friends."

Mars groaned. "It's not that easy!" she complained, and Elias was a little surprised to see that she was genuinely upset. "I literally can't talk to people. I barely spoke at the party unless someone talked to me first. I felt sick for the first, like, two hours I was there."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"Because I wanted to do something for once," Mars mumbled. "But it's hard. Everyone else talks so easily, but I get too scared to."

Elias briefly thought of Roman, who had said something very similar. It's easier to talk one on one, without a crowd. So all in all: strangers are a no-zone?

"Hey," Elias said softly. Mars looked at him, a furrow between her brows. He pressed his thumb against it and said, "It's okay to be nervous. Talking to new people can be scary, especially if there's a lot of them. Go at your own pace, okay?"

She nodded, that little wrinkle straightening out. Elias dropped his hand back into his lap. "You wanna talk about it more?"

Mars shrugged, fiddling with her fingers.

Elias cracked a small smile. "You don't have to. It's okay."

"It's not that I don't want to," Mars mumbled, avoiding eye contact, "it's just... I don't know how to word it."

"Try. We can figure it out together."

She huffed, sitting up, pulling a pillow onto her lap, hugging it to her chest. She rested her chin on top of it and said, "It's hard to like, make friends. There's people I wanna be friends with, but I'm too scared of embarrassing myself. Or like — what if they don't wanna be friends with me? And I keep thinking about it and it makes me feel sick. I can't even freaking ask to go to the bathroom."