Blind Ambition | ✓

23 | Transcendental

The beginning of December brought the snow. But not the aesthetic, fluffy, pristine white kind of snow. The mucky, tar-colored, smelled like old gasoline snow that caked the sides of the roads and left a crusty white residue all over the red hood of my car. I cranked the heat in my car higher as Chris and I sat in the drive-thru line at Wendy's.

"So walk me through this again," Chris said as he leaned back in his seat. "You just...randomly changed your mind about Jordyn?"

It had taken me a while to come to grips with everything that happened after Halloween, and between double practices for the playoffs, AP test prep, and doing nothing but sleep during my fleeting moments of free time, I hadn't gotten much alone time with Chris in the last few weeks. But it didn't take a genius to pick up on the momentum shift between Jordyn and I. We made out in the hallway for fucks sake.

I left Kaia out of the equation, mostly because I was still having trouble working out how something intangible and unexplainable between us had propelled me into this mess. She'd more or less gotten back together with Jackson, and their giggling outside of our AP Lit class nauseated me. There was a momentum shift there too, just less obvious. She and I rarely fought in class anymore. We just ignored each other, and somehow that felt worse.

"I only really changed my mind about being public about everything," I let out a sigh as I raked my hand through my hair. "I mean yeah maybe at one point I wanted to stop hooking up with her but like...why bother? Sneaking around is the only thing I don't have the time or energy for, so whatever. We'll play house, I'll take her to prom, and then I'll be gone and so will she. It just seems like the least complicated option for me right now."

At least that part was true. Was it really lying if I was only conveniently leaving out information?

"I admire your self-awareness," Chris chuckled. "Does she know where she's going to school yet?"

I shook my head. "She got into Binghamton, but I think she's waiting to hear from Syracuse. Honestly...I don't even know what she wants to do. I couldn't tell you one thing she's actually interested in beyond like...drawing stuff."

"She's interested in you," Chris jabbed with a grin. "In fact, I'm pretty sure if she could major in you, she would."

I groaned. "Not funny."

But Chris laughed anyway. "Seriously, are your parents like, planning the wedding now?"

I groaned. "Basically. On top of everything else, I've been eating dinner at her house every Tuesday night the last few weeks, and they eat weird hippie healthy shit."

We finally pulled up to the order screen on the drive-thru, and a woman's voice crackled through the speaker, exhaustingly asking for our order. I rattled off my usual 20 piece nuggets and large fries, but given my mood I added a chocolate Frosty for good measure. As usual, Chris had modifications for everything, and god forbid a tomato even touched any of his food, he'd lose his shit.

I housed my Frosty so fast I'd almost given myself a brain freeze.

"Well..." Chris sighed as we pulled back into the school parking lot. "I know this probably isn't what you want to hear, but it is kind of nice to feel loved."

I didn't really know what being loved felt like. I just knew right now, I felt like a trophy - something to be paraded around and put on a pedestal to be admired from afar. But maybe resigning myself to that would make my life as it was now a hell of a lot easier, and maybe one day I'd actually believe it was something like love.

Most of the seniors had returned by now if they had gone out for lunch, leaving Chris and I inconspicuously parked in our usual spot among the rest of the cars. No one would think twice to bother us, and no one would care.