The Good Enough Friend (YA)

Chapter 6.2 - July 22, 2019 [✔]

Our parents popped opened a bottle of wine and wanted us to make haste. 

"Shoo shoo," Mom motioned at us with her hands.

"Pinterest is calling my name," Zeriah zoomed upstairs off to her room. She spent hours on Pinterest curating aesthetic boards. Nalorn had everyone fixated with aesthetics. I was no different. Something about boys with nail polish.

Milo and I followed and detoured to my room.

"Leave the door open," Dad warned from the foyer. I peeked over the railing at him and rolled my eyes. 

What did he think we would do up here? Images of Milo and I kissing like Tawnyi in Grissom in the movie flooded my brain. I shuddered. 

Gross. Eww. 

Milo walked in first.

"You have a lot of rocks," he observed my rock cabinet. It was the first thing to be seen when entering my room. Through and through I was a rock collector.

Is it weird?

It's only 80 rocks.

Everyone has their thing.

Yours is rocks.

Calm down.

"Thank you," I decided it was a compliment.

I didn't know if he thought it was weird but it wasn't important. 

He glanced at my copy—signed copy— of Melting Tawnyi's Heart. It was the main attraction on my vanity. Next to it was a brand new bottle of the cologne Wyatt wore on my birthday Belus Cucumber & Cinnamon, a stand for my bonnets, and Jodie—the most important rock of them all.

"Belus?" he was astonished, "That's worth more than a month's groceries." The last part was more muttered to himself than spoken to me.

They spend less than $300 on groceries? How?

"Wy-bird?" he motioned towards my wall of photos of Wyatt and I.

Wy-bird?

"Wyatt, yeah," Did the rest of the soccer boys give him that nickname? I needed to follow up with him about it later. 

I couldn't. He'd ask how I knew and I'd have to tell him about this. What was this? Two acquaintances making small talk. Not when one acquaintance wanted to date the other.

"Didn't know he had a girlfr—"

I corrected him, "We're best friends."

The distinction between 'we're just friends' and 'we're friends' was an important one. Wyatt and I weren't a will they/won't they pair of friends. Everyone else was confused at how a guy and a girl could battle their raging hormones and be 'just friends' and I hated it with all my heart.

Society was convinced that girls and boys or women and men couldn't be friends. That one was pining after the other. Both of them were pining. All they needed was a nudge. It was untrue and hurtful. 

Why was society like this? 

He asked, "For how long?"

"Three years," I plopped on the edge of my bed, "Do you have a best friend?"

Milo sat in my recliner and leaned back. He touched his earrings, "Cloud Soren, we match earrings, it's kind of our thing."

Cloud was also known as the cunnilingus master. An entire stall in the girl's bathroom was dedicated to him but Milo didn't need to know that.