The Chronicles of Aida Sickler | H.S

eighteen.

"Her name is Melissa."

"I said that."

"Why are you so hung up on her? Are you even just a bit jealous because in the past hour, you've brought her up a total of three times."

I sat back up in the chair and squinted my eyes at him. Glancing back into my memory, I hadn't even thought about how many times her name tumbled from my mouth. "I said she was pretty, I said I'm glad y'all used a condom, and I talked about how I saw her in the halls sometime! I'm not worried about her, no one's-"

"You do realize that you just proved my point." Harry began in his British accent that I soon found incredibly annoying.

"Let's talk about something else."

Harry sighed and leaned back into his seat for the second time in the past thirty minutes. "Since Cooper Road is shut down due to flooding, we need to find some place other than here to chill because I'm not going to waste anymore of my gas watching you eat your granola bars and listening to you talking about Melissa and how pretty she is."

"Let's go to Angelo's and just get some pizza!" I suggested but Harry's frustration only built.

"We can't go to your house or mine, or any place on Main Street. Unless we park in some secluded area and take a shortcut by walking, but you clearly explained very loudly that if one drop of rain falls on your head, you'll be pissed. I don't want to be around you when you're pissed."

I stayed silent because I didn't know where else to go.

"We can go to Randall's apartment?"

"You mean Bones?" I teased and Harry started up his car before pulling out of the parking lot, rolling his eyes. "Harry, no. That didn't mean yes. I don't know them and they'll-"

"Randall is chill. Please relax."

He looked over to me and turned on his windshield wipers, one hand resting on the wheel and the other falling to my thigh. He squeezed in a reassuring way and my breath hitched in my throat. I tried to regulate my breathing but his large hand wrapped around my thigh so quickly that I forgot how to. "But I don't know them." I trailed off and pretended to be completely fine with what was happening by looking out the foggy window. "And there's gonna be weed, you know weed fucks up my insomnia."

"There's going to be more than weed but don't worry." He pulled his hand away from my thigh with his eyes still on the road. "You'll be okay, I'll be there."

I scoffed. "And you're supposed to be.."

"Your knight and shining armor."

"Technically Melissa's-"

"Aida, for fucks sake."

-

Harry was not joking when he said there would be more than weed. A part of me knew he wasn't joking, and the other part wanted to believe he was because I wasn't surrounded by anything other than alcohol and cannabis.

The small apartment room was a foggy cloud and a group of high school graduates huddled around a desk table with a large computer and even bigger speakers. Harry let me enter first and when I did, his hand rested on the small of my back. The door was open when we walked up the steps, but they didn't mind. Their room was the only room on the floor that was occupied.

A tall, skinny man appeared from the doorway of the kitchen with his hair held in a bun and a blunt stuck to his top lip. Once he saw Harry behind my short frame, his lips curled into a smile. "'Sup Harry." He grumbled out and looked at me questioningly. "Who is this little kiddo."