Scarlet Season

Old Pictures

"I think that might be the most complicated sport that I've ever watched in my entire life," you tell Ned and Peter as you get onto the train back to Queens. 

"I tried to explain it all to you, it's so simple!" Ned exclaims, you and Peter laugh. 

Ned sits opposite you, and Peter awkwardly plops into the seat next to you. 

"I'm so wiped out," you say as you rub your eyes and yawn, it's already 11:17pm. 

"How long does it take to get back to the city?" Peter asks Ned. 

"Just as long as it took to get here," Ned says jokingly, Peter doesn't find it funny. "Like thirty minutes," Ned mumbles. 

You jump when you hear 'ding' come from your phone, someone's texted you. 

Flipping your phone over, you're puzzled as to why Peter's texted you. 

'Meet me at 1 am at the bus stop, it's important' his message reads.

You quickly respond 'okay' while trying to keep a straight face, so that Ned doesn't suspect anything. 

"Everything okay Scarlet?" Ned asks you, dang it. 

"Y-yeah I'm fine, thank you," You mumble as you look over at Peter. 

You notice that his phone screen is angled away from you so that you can't see the screen, weird. 

"So, how'd you like your first baseball game?" Ned asks you, trying to make conversation. 

You slide your phone into your back pocket and smile.  

"It was fun! Baseball seems to be a bit like another sport that I've heard of before though," you reply. 

"Oh, you mean softball?" Ned asks you.

"Maybe, I'm not sure," you shrug. 

Ned switches his gaze from you to Peter. 

"Peter, what did you think of the game?" Ned asks him. 

You snort when Ned asks this, Peter was hardly present for any of the game. He was on 'work calls'.

Peter vaguely looks over at you and then at Ned. 

"It was good," is all that he says before turning his attention back to his phone. 

Ned looks at you as if to ask what's going on, you just yawn and shrug. 

Ned's clearly tired of trying to make conversation, so he grabs his sweatshirt from his backpack and leans back on it to rest. 

With Peter being a hermit on his phone and Ned trying to sleep, you have nothing to do. Instead of doing something productive like working on your Spanish homework, you go to your camera roll and begin to scroll through old pictures of you and Jackie. 

You sigh, already knowing that looking through the old photos is going to upset you, but you do it anyways.