Rivals // Norminah

30

The whole car ride was silent between Dinah and I. She'd catch me staring at her a lot but she didn't seem to mind. She was just slight smile before going back to focusing on the road.

We slowly pull into the parking lot of some small school that looks slight familiar. Dinah gets out the car and jogs around to open the door for me.

"Thanks" I mumble.

"No problem Prin- Mani" She says. She shuts the door and she leads me towards the playground on the side of the building. Sits down on one of the benches and pats the spot next to her. I lightly smile before taking the seat.

"So," I start. "What brings us here?" I question.

"Well you wanted to know everything and there's no better place to start than the beginning" Dinah states. She leans back in the bench and sighs. "We met at this school in third grade when I moved from Santa Ana, California. I remember at recess, I was with my friends and you were with yours. I was on the monkey bars when you grabbed my legs yanking me down making me bust my ass on the wood chips" Dinah chuckles.

"I did not?" I laugh. Dinah nods.

"Oh yes you did! You told me I needed to stop acting like a teacher's pet or me and you would have problems!" I covering my mouth laughing.

"Jesus! And did you stop?" I question.

"Hell no! I kept doing me and told your ass that I'd give you a poly beat down if you put your hands on me again!" I shake my head chuckling.

"And then what? We became friends like a few days or weeks later?" I question. Dinah shakes her head.

"Not even close. We hated each other since. In middle school, the principal had to make sure all of our classes were not near each other's vicinity because we started so many problems" Dinah states.

"Wow. We must really have hated each other" Dinah nods. "Then why are you so friendly now, like shouldn't you not want to be near me?" I ask. Dinah shrugged.

"Things changed. We changed. But that's a story for another time"

"Well couldn't you have told me all this at school? Did you have to bring me all this way?" I question.

"I thought it may help jog your memory if i took you to the places where everything happened" Dinah stands up offering her hand for me to grab. I take it and she helps me up. We begin walking back to the car.

"So what made you change your mind about helping me? Being around me?" I ask. Dinah keeps her gaze forward as we walk.

"I want you to trust me. I don't want you hating me. It took me three years to get close to you and I'm not gonna throw that all away" She says. I nod.

"So you want everything to go back to how it was before?" Dinah stops and looks at me.

"No, I don't" She starts. I tilt my head confused. "Before we couldn't get anything right. We'd both always say the wrong thing, our friends hate each other and still do, and everything was way more complicated than it needed to be. Now don't get me wrong, We had great times together but the bad outweighs the good" I sigh and continue walking.

"I just wish I could remember" Dinah nods in agreement with her hands in her pockets.

"Have you tried looking at pictures?" Dinah asks.

"Kind of. Most of the pictures are selfies, of Aspen, or my so called friends" I state.

"What about the pictures of us?" I look at her confused.

"What pictures?" Dinah gives me the same look back.

"What do you mean what pictures? Every time we were together, you were obsessed with us taking pictures. You said you liked to look at them when you missed me" Dinah smiled to herself.

"Well I don't have any pictures of us or you. Actually now that I think about it, I didn't have any conversations with you either over text" I realize.

"You probably deleted everything when we..." She stops herself mid thought and runs her fingers through her hair. She clears her throat and puts on a smile. It looks fake however. "I should probably get you home" She walks to the passenger side and opens the door for me.

I smile at her and get in and she shuts the door. She walks around and gets into the drivers seat. She starts the car and begins driving.

The whole ride we sit in silence but it doesn't feel awkward. It feel quite normal actually. Dinah is lightly humming to the song playing on the radio while tapping her finger lightly on the wheel. I smile as I watch her secretly jam out. How could someone be so attractive without trying?

She's pulls up to my house outside the gate and parks the car. She gets out and comes around and opens the door for me again.

"Thank you" She nods as I step out. She shuts the door for me.

"I would have driven up but I don't think Andrea would be happy that you're with me" She chuckles.

"Right" I say simply. I don't say anything else but just stare at the gorgeous blonde in front of me. I could do this all day if I could.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" She questions.

"Like what?"

"I don't even know how to explain it" She says. I shrug.

"I'm just amazed by how beautiful you are" Dinah rolls her eyes and a hair falls in front of her face. "God definitely took his time creating you" I lightly move the hair behind her ear. Dinah sucks in air and tenses up. She lightly glances down at my lips before taking a step back.

"U-Uh, I should get going. Yeah. Um, see you tomorrow" She quickly runs around the driver's side and gets in the car quickly before staring the car and taking off leaving me. See you tomorrow Dinah.