Left Alone In Paris

Chapitre 7

Who Likes Brussels Sprouts?

~Nine Months Later~

The final bell chimes and students buzz out of the class, making noises like bees. Even indoors I can sense the magnificent smell of spring, too bad I am going to spend all of break in my basement. Sad face.

"Aria! Aria, wait up!" I hear a voice calling me, and two girls' giggles coming nearer behind me. Emmerson and Hayden jump to either side of me in this crowded hallway and wrap their arms over my shoulders. "It's spring break, let's go out and do something fun!"

Emmy tips her chin over my shoulder to talk to Hayden behind my head, "What about that picnic thing?"

"You mean the one my dad's company is holding? There's a bunch of our sponser's coming, and lots of boys from other school's are probably gonna be there; maybe we could get Aria a boyfriend!"

I roll my eyes, "I can hear you two! And I don't want a boyfriend!"

"Ever since that France trip last summer! What ever happened to Kyle? I thought you liked him." Hayden looks at me through her double-mascaraed sapphires, she's always on top of fancy with bright lips and extended lashes. She also, in recognition of today, is sporting a short white dress and long necklaces that dangle from her neck and had her long blonde locks pulled into a braided bun surrounding the nook of her neck.

"Kyle was just the guy who I was partnered with in Chem." I look at her confused as to why she'd think I liked him, and she just shrugs and looks away.

"Oh."

"Well, that's why there is a picnic," Emmy encourages, maybe you and Kyle could get closer.

This is how my friends joke. This is how I laugh with them: "Ha. Ha."

They both let go of me and change positions. Hayden, crossing her arms and rubbing her chin like old detectives, speaks first, "Fine, don't get a boyfriend."

"I won't," I announce proudly, "I'll have my Ps3 stay with me."

Emmy taps on my shoulder, trying to bring me in the light of womanhood, "Sure. But can your Ps3 go on dates with you?"

Hayden jumps in, "Or make out with you?"

"If I unplug it..." I start to reason with them and they look at me weird. I flick my gaze between the two, "I mean, I'll have to restart it after, but it goes on dates with me all the time when we are picking out a new controller." My friends seem to have lost their minds or something because they don't respond as quick as they normally would.

"And I kiss it every night, if that's what you mean," I tell Hayden.

They look just short of flabbergasted when they dip their heads down to move ahead of my pace, awfully nimble. "Come on, I was joking! But I'm not coming out tonight, I have to meet up with a Chinese guy on Live!" I call ahead to them, but the only people who show a response are people around me, and they just look at me weird.

I laugh so they will look away, "Haha, I was joking," I smile bright, my cheeks on fire, for everyone and run to meet my friends who are already a hallway ahead of me.

They are laughing and I figure it is about my prior embarrassment. "Just come tonight," Hayden advises me. "I promise, after this get-together, you can stay in your basement the rest of the week. I won't call you or text you a single time while you pig out in your man cave and beat your Chinese man, not caring about the fact that school will be back next Monday."

I give her my look of disbelief, turning to Emmerson when she agrees, " Pweeease? Oh, pretty, pretty pwease?" She bats her emerald orbs and has her hands clasped at her chin.