Hero » l.p. au

Chapter 28

"Thanks for agreeing to see me," I said after a long, kind of an awkward silence. "I know you'd rather be at the party but-"

"No, it's alright," Briana assured me, and as I glanced at her I saw a smile on her face; a sympathetic one. "There weren't any cute boys there anyway."

I nodded; lack of cute boys on parties is always a legitimate reason to leave. "Still, it's cold out. And I don't have any food or money."

"Well... I brought two cups of mulled wine with me, but I drank both of them 'cause I was cold." A wider smile appeared on her face when I laughed, for a short few seconds. That's all she's been trying to do the past few days.

"So... is everything alright? At home and stuff?" She asked and in a flash, my already small smile was gone.

"Not really," I admitted, "I mean, mum's starting to notice something's wrong. Soon she's gonna figure out no celebrity died." I grimaced as I remembered the lie I've told my mum; but when she asked why I was being more sad than usual, I couldn't just tell her he and I had a fall out. She would've turned the world upside down.

And on the other hand, nothing would have made me sadder than a famous person dying. So I wasn't even surprised when she bought my lie.

"Oh my God," Bri laughed, "Who did you tell her died?"

"I just said 'no one you know', obviously I'm not gonna give her a name," I smirked, "She knows how to use google."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Bri said, still grinning, and for another minute or so we continued walking down the little dark street in silence. We could hear music coming from every house that we passed; well, obviously people aren't gonna spend New Year's Eve in silence. Even though it's nearly two hours after midnight.

"You wanna go somewhere? Like, the park or something?" She asked again, to which I just shrugged. I didn't really care where I'd be; I just didn't want to be by myself.

"Sure, or the center of the city. There are still kids throwing firecrackers around." Bri just nodded to my suggestion, and I couldn't help but feel lucky that I have her as a friend. She didn't ask me why I'd called her to meet me somewhere; she just knew why. And I loved her for that as well.

"Sounds okay. We can get them to give us some too," She said, and I had a slight feeling she'd only suggested that so there wouldn't be silence between us. "I don't know why, but I brought money with me to the party."

"Well, you never know if there's gonna be that one asshole that's gonna make you give money for beer because they're out of it," I said slowly as I watched the clear sky, remembering the New Year's party I'd gone to the previous year. I didn't even want to drink alcohol, yet I had to give one pound so they'd buy more. I mean, what the fuck?

"Yeah, I guess that's what I was thinking too." Of course Briana was at that party with me, and of course she was as pissed as I was. "But this is good, instead of paying for beer that we're not gonna drink, we can buy firecrackers. That's a better investment."

"You mean, a better waste of money you got for the holidays," I chuckled, and she joined me. I looked down at my feet as we fell into another silence; now that we've sort of run out of topics for small talk, I can only imagine what she's gonna bring up next.

"Did you see Dominick since... since a few days ago?" Sadly that was one of the things I thought she'd bring up.

"Um, yeah," I replied, in a tone that was a little too chill. She definitely knew it too. "I went to Glacier the day after Christmas, to pick up my working shirt to wash it, and yeah, he was there."