If I Die

One

"Adriana, hurry up!" Shrieks Ansleigh, banging on the bathroom door. "I need to be in the shower in the next five minutes to be ready in time to get to class!"

Growling, she shuts off the water. The last thing she needed this morning is to get into another fight with her sister.

After quickly grabbing her towel and drying off, she wraps the towel around her and dashes out of the bathroom.

"It's about damn time, Adri! If I'm late for class again, I'm going to kick your ass when I get home!" She yells after her. But Adriana ignores her and slams her bedroom door in response.

"I don't know what is so hard about using the downstairs bathroom for her!" She growls to herself as she runs a brush through her tangled wet brown hair.

Checking her phone again for the time, she groans. 7:08. If there was any hope of getting to Ella's house and school on time, she needed to leave in twenty minutes.

"I can do this." She mumbles to herself, trying mentally prepare herself. I hope.

. . .

The sound of her iPhone ringing broke Adriana's concentration from her eyeliner. Startled, she accidentally makes a huge black mark on her right cheek. Oh, you have got to be kidding me, she thinks to herself and grabs her phone.

"I'm getting ready, Ella. I don't really have time for this. What do you want?" She answers the phone without even saying hello.

I loud sigh could be heard on the other end of the line. "You do this everyday! Have you even bothered checking the time since you started getting ready?"

Pulling the phone away from her ear, she looks at the time. 7:31. Rolling her eyes, she puts the phone back to her ear. "Stop being so dramatic, Ella. I'm leaving in fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes? Adriana, in fifteen minutes the first bell will ring!"

Adriana's best friend, Ella Scott, has been riding with her everyday since the day Adriana got her license and started driving to school. Ella's family, while they were living comfortably, refused to help her buy a car. They always said she needed to earn it on her own. So, instead of getting a job and earning money to buy one, Ella protested by riding with friends everywhere and not getting a part time job. She always said she would if they would agree to help with part of the payment, but they won't, so neither will she.

Ella was stubborn that way. Not that Adriana could blame her; she would be walking to school if her parents had done the same. Luckily her parents matched her dollar for dollar on what she had saved up through out the years and she was able to pay cash on her little red Toyota Corolla. It wasn't the typical car you'd expect a girl like her to drive, but she was proud of it because it was something she had helped earn.

"Okay, okay! Look, I'm done with my make up, let me dry my hair a little and throw it in a bun. I'll be out of the house in five minutes." Quickly ending the call, she throws her phone on her bed and plugs in her hair dryer.

As promised, five minutes later she was running out of the door, ignoring her mom as she yelled after her, trying to get her to take a muffin.

"Take this sweetie, you need some—" Slam! Her mother's efforts were cut off by the slam of the door.

Adriana never looked back, not even caring she had hardly spoken to her mom in the last couple weeks. In her mind, she had more important things to deal with.

.   .   .

The blaring of the her horn could be heard up and down the street. Adriana sat her car in Ella's driveway, waiting for her friend to come out. Not even a second later, Ella came running out of the front door of her home with her long coat tightly wrapped around her.

"If I wasn't so cold right now, I'd beat the crap out of you." Ella said, plopping down into the passenger seat. After throwing her bag in the back, she starting warming her bare hands in front of the vents. "What took you so long? You said you were leaving in five minutes!"

"Look in the cup holder." She says pointedly with her eyes. "I knew we were already going to be late, so I figured I might as well make it worth something. I got your favorite..."

Picking up the medium sized to go coffee cup, she holds it up with both hands close to her nose. "Caramel    Macchiato, you are my one and only!" Ella gushes and takes a small sip.

Smiling to herself, Adriana knew Ella couldn't stay mad when she brought her favorite drink from the local coffee shop, Wyatt's. It was owned and ran by the family of this guy she was in love with. Adriana did not see the appeal of the guy, whose name was Colby Evans, other than the fact their family was loaded. The guy was weird. Never spoke to anyone. He was always working the register if he wasn't at school. As far as she knew, he had no friends. But Ella was infatuated. It drove her nuts.

"Was he there?" She asked halfway to school.

Adriana groaned. "Who? Your lover boy? God, Ella, I don't know what you see in that guy. He's so damn backwards. This morning, the only thing he said was my total. Barely looked at me."

Ella sighs and puts her drink back in the cup holder. "Adri, it's not like you're the easiest person to talk to. You probably scared him."

"Oh, what ever! I highly doubt that!" Adriana says, letting out a dry laugh. "There's got to be something more wrong there. He's just not normal."

The rest of the way to school, they didn't speak. Adriana didn't seem to realize it, but she had upset Ella. And even when they parted ways in the hall, Ella watched her friend walk away and wondered to herself why she was even friends with Adriana in the first place.

But, the answer was simple.

At an early age, the girls were pushed together by their parents. As the story goes,  their moms were already friends and were pregnant at the same time coincidentally. So it was decided long ago Ella and Adriana would be the same. And since they grew up together, they fell together as best fiends quite easily. They were more like sisters. Even fought like them many of times.

But the older they got, the harder staying friends became. They loved each other, sure. Although most days, they were at each other's throats about one thing or another. Here lately it was about Adriana's bad habit of making Ella late for school.

Ella doesn't want to cut ties with her life long best friend. But she just doesn't know how much more snide comments and put downs she can take from her. All she wants in this world is her friend to change. But unfortunately, that may never happen.