This Changes Everything

06. (cold-shoulda-) lola

The sound of Miki's car pulling up, has me scurrying out of my bedroom and I balance my phone, my food, my water bottle and the house keys. I wobble over to her white Volkswagen convertible

The driver seat window rolls down, which reveals a grinning Micaela. "Get in, loser." She yells over the blasting of Lauryn Hill's discography.

I slip into the passenger seat at the same time that the music changes to 'Killing Me Softly With His Song.' 

"That kind of mood, huh?" I ask, buckling into my seatbelt as I shift in the leather sits until I find a comfortable position. "The music," I elaborate after a moment.

"Oh you are not turning this onto me," Micaela laughs, putting her car into drive. "What was that whole thing today?"

My gaze flickers out of the window, and I press the container of my pasta closer up on my lap as I think of a response.

Micaela drives so fast the trees start to blur into eachother. The green and yellow leaves that cling to the trees create all kinds of shapes as they fade into each other.

"What thing?" I ask.

I can feel Micaela's eyes stare daggers into the back of my head. "The whole Tate and Amos thing."

With a groan I'm definitely exaggerating I throw my head back against the seat, "Can we not talk about this? I'm already pissed off as is."

"What? Why?"

Why? Is she serious? I rip my eyes off of the window and eye the dark-haired girl next to me. Unlike me, Micaela's wearing the Frolic Strand's hoodie with the matching cap. Her long straight hair is pulled back into a ponytail that weaves its way through the peephole at the back of the cap.

"Amos completely embarrassed me and Tate and Brooke were riling him up. It's like...I don't know," I finally sigh, unable to finish my thought.

"I don't think it's like that at all." Micaela disagrees, rolling out her shoulders. "Tate kept his cool the entire time, and Amos was being such a dick. He kept on saying 'do you know who I am?' to him. And then he stalks over to Tate as if he was about to deck him or something."

"But Tate said 'are you going to fight me?' Miki, is that not riling him up?"

"What was he supposed to do? Stand there and let Amos try and intimidate him? Loles, Amos was with his whole entourage. Tate was with Johnny and Brooke. And you know Johnny, he's not fighting and Brooke is well...Brooke. He's just there for a good time."

"Tate fights though," I retort. Not that he's being doing it recently, but his records aren't clean. He plays dirty. He fights dirty. Well, he used to anyway.

We pull up to a red light and I can hear Micaela's body rubs against the leather car seat as she turns to face me. Her nearly-black eyes bore into mine. "Lola, are you seriously defending Amos right now?"

I run a frustrated hand down my face, "Shit," I breathe out, "I don't know why I'm doing that." Am I that much of a loser that I'm defending my cheating ex-boyfriend?

A jarring beep from the car behind us, has Micaela rolling down her window and flipping the car of teenage boys off before she speeds down the street. "It's not your fault," Micaela reassures me, with lingering anger.  "He was your boyfriend of two and something years, you obviously still feel a love for him."