Her Last Wish

Chapter 36

"Only when I want to be. I'm Jared Bent," he says, stretching his hand out stiffly for a handshake.  I take it, glad to know the boy has a firm hold. Last time I talked to a kid his age, they pushed their hands in their pockets in that mildly disinterested way kids do to act older than they are. The guy also told me he "isn't going to apologise for you being in the fucking way" so this is a major step up already.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jared," I tell him and he smiles. It's adorable and I smile back after I've let our hands drop.

"Alright you little shit. Let's get inside," Tyson says, his hands on the small of my back as he guides me in. I hide my face in the collar of my shirt. He really didn't have to do that, the fucker.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" Jared asks me and I suppress the urge to coo at him. He's all sorts of adorable in that gangly way pew-teens are, learning about himself but still looking around to find out what to do. I'd deny thinking this to my last breath, but I'm glad he has Tyson. Annoying as he is, he's quite the guy when he has to be. I duck my head into my collar again the hide my blush. Tyson raises an eyebrow at this but says nothing.

"Uh... no thanks. It's fine. I ate before we came here anyway."

Tyson raises an eyebrow again and I wince. He was with me before this and he knows for a fact that I didn't eat. My mind is too busy whirling with nervousness for me to eat, in any case.

The closer we get to the living room, the more my hands start to shake. I shove them into my pockets of my hoodie to hide them. Out of the corner of my eye I see Tyson's hand jerk towards mine and I tense. In the end he decided to ruffle my hair instead and my heartbeat quickens for a different reason. I scowl are him to hide my blush but his cheeky grin just widens.

"So does your mom-"

"Still like you? Yeah. Secretly hates you to the depths of her soul? No. If you ask me this question one more time I'm going to tell her you ate a whole jar of mayonnaise in one sitting and she's going to be horrified," he says, an eyebrow raised.

"Better than traumatising her-"

"No. I'm not going to let you finish that sentence, alright? Trust me, she adores you. You're doing her a favour by coming here."

Jared snorts. "You're doing him a favour by coming here. This idiot here talks about you all the time."

Half of me wants to duck my head in my collar to hide my blush because fucking hell I wasn't expecting that. For some reason, I thought my existence was never talked about. What do you even say? Oh look, it's the pale skinny girl with the scars on her hand.

The other half of me, though, wants to look up at him with that one smirk that clearly says "ha ha you're embarrassed and I am aggressively amused" because damn he must be embarrassed. I look up at him, just to confirm my thoughts, and boy am I glad I did. He's glaring at the 12 year old with the intensity that probably only seen when one sibling embarrasses another. There's a blush staining his cheeks that could maybe, possibly, rival mine and his hands are balled into fists at his sides.

His eyes, though, are the best. All anger and embarrassment shining through without anything holding it back.

The snap of my camera brings the attention to me.

"What the fuck," Tyson exclaims, his blush deepening.

"I'd tell you I'm sorry but I'm really not," I say with a small grin of my own.

"Don't worry, you could throw a brick at him and he'd say thank you," Jared says, all while Tyson's glare deepens.

And the whole thing is just so surreal to me, so completely out of blue and utterly impossible to think about, that I laugh. And it's so loud, this laugh, and I think you can hear the disbelief in it, but Tyson's face is so red and Jared face looks so smug and this situation was never one I never thought I'd be in so I laugh as loud as my weak throat can push and I hear Jared laughing along with me.