The Yellow Umbrella

Chapter Four: Last Friday

My favorite day of the week was Monday.

Most people hated Mondays. It marked the end of the weekend, the start of a whole miserable long week. But for me, it was a reset button, anything embarrassing that happened the week before was erased, forgotten over weekend plans and sleeping in. I could recall countless Mondays where no one remembered me stuttering through a presentation or a girl rejecting me the Friday before. But I dreaded that cloudy Monday more than the Tuesday when I ran the mile in my shrunken gym shorts. I didn't want Monday to erase what had happened over the weekend. Then again, I don't think anything could have ever made me forget.

The football team had lost miserably to our rival school, the Horristown Wasps. I don't mean to gloat, but Brandon found himself on the wrong end of a tackle and had to use crutches for the rest of the season. Hearing the news kinda made me wish I went...

Driving past the front of the school, I cringed. Once a year, my school put a wrecked car right near the entrance of the senior parking lot with a large plastic banner that said, 'Was that text worth it?' in faded mustard letters. Then during homeroom, we had assemblies on safe driving. It was equally as useless as the week of respect because no one actually listened to what they told us. They were all things most people with common sense knew to do: Don't drive drunk, be nice to the weird kid, he might be a shooter. I didn't even show up to the assemblies; I just hid in the video room.

Parking my rusted red truck, I waited for the rest of the students to battle their way in. If you didn't get to the parking lot before 7:07 AM, it was a bloodbath to even get on school grounds from the insane amount of traffic. You see, the high school was built right next to the middle school and they started at the same time. So, you either had to fight a mom carpooling, a fuck ton of busses, or your typical angsty teens to even turn into the parking lot. Right of way meant nothing in times of war. Some days the traffic was backed up all the way from the stop light a quarter of a mile down the road. That was why I came to school ten minutes early everyday: sometimes I napped, sometimes I crammed a study sesh, but usually I re-parked my car seven million times to make sure it wasn't crappy. That was one of the biggest fears in the senior class, getting tagged as the worst driver. It started with parking. The saddest part was, I wasn't a morning person, so I had to set seven alarms to make sure I had time to get to school early. But that morning, I was wide awake long before my phone could even ring. There was one car I was specifically waiting for, a forest green Mini Cooper. Another annoying, but great thing for me, my school rewarded the top ten smartest seniors with the closest parking spots to the building. It drove Wyatt mad that I was number one and he was two. The only downside, Mia was five rows over in the sixties.

I watched Wyatt's shiny black BMW convertible pull in next to me. I did a double take of the half full parking lot, hoping I hadn't missed Mia drive in. Skimming the line of cars waiting to turn into the lot, I didn't spot her Coop.

"Dude!" Wyatt banged on the window of my truck "Bella Swan called, she wants her truck back."

I laughed and rolled down the window, "At least I paid for my own car. Did Daddy's money buy you that joke?"

"My dad bought you?" Wyatt pretended to be shocked.

I tossed my head back and laughed.

"Jesus you're in a good mood. Guessing Friday went well?" Wyatt noted.

I glanced at the clock in my car, there was still five minutes before the warning bell rang.

"You can say that." I murmured dreamily, touching my bottom lip.

It still felt soft and tender.

Wyatt's mouth dropped, "No, you didn't...?"

Before I could answer, Mia's copper coils appeared beside him, "Didn't what?"