Onward Arrows

2: Awkward encounters

I am completely frozen where I stand. His mom is only a few feet away from us as she sets her purse and keys onto the kitchen counter. Luckily she has her back turned toward us and has yet to realize we are standing there in the living room. I slowly turn my head, afraid to take my eyes off of her. My purse is still lying next to the coffee table but I am much too afraid to make any sudden movements. A gasp from the kitchen causes me to turn my attention back towards his mother.

"Matt?" She manages to scream. She is now looking down at his naked body as we had done just moments before she arrived. Her brunette boy was sporting shaggy hair and the 'blackout-from-last-night' look. She did not seem to think it was funny at all. "What is going on here!?"

A sudden pull on my arm meant it must be time to make an escape. Ellie has a tight hold on my arm, and before I know it she is pulling me out of the front door. Hand in hand, we are sprinting across the freshly cut green lawn. I glance back to see Matt's mother standing in front of their trashed home, waving her fist in the air yelling something, but I could not catch on. All I know is that her face looked much younger and happier in the picture that was hung on the living room wall.

"Come on!" Ellie yelled. Her car is still parked a block down from Matt's house, exactly where we had left it last night.

"Damn, my shoes and my purse!"

Ellie laughed, "We can't go back now!"

Finally we reached her Jeep. It was a silver 2011 Jeep Wrangler with a Hawaiian lay and colorful party beads hanging from the rear view mirror. Whenever I saw similar Jeeps around town, I could tell this was hers because of the 'Hang loose' sign on the back window. Ellie had never surfed but she always acted as if she was a surfer chick. You know... sun kissed skin, bleach blond hair with beachy waves, and always dressing as if she is going to hang out- hang loose. Because she is my best friend, I might be the only one who knows to what extent she will go to maintain this image. It takes an extensive amount of tanning, spending tons of money in the salon every few months, and she buys all her clothes from stores like Pac Sun and Urban Outfitters. In her defense, all the boys loved this about her. Most girls just think she is some kind of hipster wanna be. In all actuality, they don't really know her and none of them understand her like I do.

After unlocking the doors, we both climbed inside the car panting uncontrollably. We both just sat there for a second to catch our breath. Finally Ellie leaned forward to start up the car.

"So what in the world happened last night", she chuckles and reaches for her sunglasses. This is a great question, I am not exactly sure. I thought for a second...

"Well, first we were at my house watching movies because we weren't going to go out. Landon texted us around 9:30 about this party-", I say as was reading last nights texts from Landon.

" Well of course!" she laughs, "why the hell didn't we go home? If Landon made it home, why didn't we just ride with him? Have you talked to him?"

"Yea, he texted me this morning asking me to grab his jean jacket. I'll get more details about last night when he comes to pick it up. I'm sure he knows" I say grabbing the spare pair of sunglasses I bought specifically for Ellie's car. She also kept a pair of sunglasses in mine.

We always went everywhere together, especially now that we were both single. I had just gotten out of a relationship of 10 months. Levi and i began dating in August and this Sunday marks the 4th week we have been apart. Ellie dated a boy for two years and they have been broken up for almost a year now. She never talks about it much but I know that she still has feelings for him. One moment they were inseparable and then one day he told her he no longer loved her like he had in the past. Come to find out, he had cheated on her numerous times during those two years. I never found out until after they broke up but Ellie knew the entire time. Even though we have been best friends since our freshman year of high school, she never talked about her own relationships... not even to me. That boy broke her heart but you could never tell by looking at her. I envy her strength.