treat you better ☔︎ s.m

Chapter Four

Treat You Better
Chapter Four
❏

Her eyes crinkle as she laughs. She sits on the blanket on the grass and tries to catch another blueberry in her mouth. She misses and falls onto the ground with laughter.

"So how's Syd doing in school?" I toss a grape into the air and catch it.

"Oh, you know," she replies, "doing what normal teenagers do; obsess over boys."

I shake my head with a small chuckle. "Does she still love me?"

"Oh heck yeah," she exclaims. "She and her friends have your albums on repeat all the time. Wakes me up half of the nights they stay. She freaked out when she heard you were back and no one invited her to your house to welcome you back."

"I'm going to assume it was a good idea to not invite her."

"You would be correct with that assumption," she replies and takes a large bite out of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We spend the rest of the afternoon talking all about the drama I've missed and all of the things I did on tour. Her dreamy sigh reminds me of the conversation we had the night I came back, and it makes me mad how her boyfriend can be so unsupportive of her dreams.

Once the time read six, we heard a squeal and it only took a couple seconds before Mia's sister was tackling me to the ground and hugging me.

"Sydney, get off of him!" Sydney ignored her sisters shouts before I pry her off of me.

"Syd, what've you been up to?" Her eyes are wide as she starts to comprehend what's being asked. It's as if she's star struck because when she opens her mouth to talk, she doesn't say a word. She just sits there and stares at me with her mouth open.

"I heard you like some of my songs." She leans in closer to me. "Is that true?"

"You're such a great singer," she compliments me. "Like, you have such a great voice."

I thank her before Mia forces her to leave. Mia lays down on the blanket before staring up at the clouds above us. Her pointer finger starts to do little traces before closing her eyes.

"Our lives could be dreams," she says before tracing patterns with her fingers again.

How can this girl have such an impact one?

[Made June 28, 2016 - Rewritten June 4, 2018]