The Girl Next Door > jariana (COMPLETED)

forty-four

Justin

The only sound in the house was a faint murmur from a TV, far off in my mother's room. I didn't even know if Notting was around anymore. How was I gonna explain to Ariana what the hell had gone down. All I could picture was her beautiful pathetic face splashed with worry as my mother tried to lay into her, and it made my blood boil. Pulling my phone from my pocket I called her.

"Hey." I whispered.

"Oh my God, I'm dying. What happened?"

"Not good, Ari. Can you sneak over?" I paused. Bad idea, "You know, never mind."

"Why? I wanna see you."

I wanted her and I wanted my mom and Notting to fuck off. "There's no easy way to say this. But they think we need to stop seeing each other."

After the initial tears on her part and long silences on both ends, we agreed it was ridiculous how they thought it was so easy for them to make that decision for us. I felt calm for the first time in hours.

"I'd better go, it's almost midnight." She sighed deeply. "It's hard to be excited about my first day of high school."

I wanted to tell her I loved her and that everything was going to be fine. "Ari, I, um," I hesitated and chickened out telling her that I loved her. "This whole thing'll blow over. Tomorrow's gonna be fine. I'll pick you up at Nicole's instead. No one's gonna find out. I'm just not gonna say another word about you to them."

I tossed and turned the entire night, lying there wondering how long my hand would be out of commission once I got the cast off. Finally I got up worrying it would never be the same and I would never be able to play again. Would that be such a bad thing? Was all of this even worth it? What was so bad being normal? Ordinary. As these thoughts swirled through my head, I didn't realize I was awkwardly typing away at the keyboard. I was stoked that even with the throbbing in my hand I was able to type a bit.

Tapping out lyrics to yet another song I had floating around in my head. Staring at my acoustic guitar, I longed to play it. It had been weeks. The longest I'd ever gone without touching it. Before I knew it was seven-thirty in the morning and I had the entire song written. The melody filled my head and I sent Bobby a text letting him know I needed him. I wanted to sing it to him and for him to play the music for me. I didn't want to wait until I could bring it to life:

Dude. I'll need you after school. I want you to bang out some tunes for me. So make no plans, please.

This was the first time I'd asked anyone else to help me with anything and it felt good. Bobby would be stoked. He'd always tried to put his two cents in and I wouldn't allow it. Today, I would listen and consider it.

Hell Yeah!

Awesome! Stoked ur into it. I'm sure you'll dig it. Dump'll shit himself tho. Ha.

Fuck him.

I laughed out loud at the irony of it all. Dump would most definitely die when he heard this new song and if he didn't...he'd kill himself when he found out Bobby's gay. Shaking my head, I wondered. Who have I become? Getting into the shower I felt relieved, slightly. I looked forward to after school and I was excited to see Ariana in the next half hour. Holding my cast up over my head to avoid getting it wet, I sang out the new song feeling more alive and normal than I had in 12 hours:

ORDINARY

I taught myself to abide

I learned enough to get by