wish i were ⇾ p.c

prolouge

"Whatever, this games boring anyway!" Said my friend Sodapop Curtis as he pushed out his chair from the dining room table and stalked off somewhere towards my living room.

Mr. Curtis shook his head, and the rest of us just laughed. This is usually how game nights with our families went.

My parents and Mr. and Mrs. Curtis have been friends for a long time. Then they all had kids, and we grew up together. The three Curtis brothers and me. They live right next door.

Darry is the oldest out of all of us. Then there's his brother Soda, then Ponyboy, then me. Ponyboy and I are the closest in age, and he's my best friend.

Almost every Friday night, we have game nights together. This has been going on as long as I can remember.

Tonight we were playing Monopoly. In whatever game we played, Soda was always the first to either lose (or go bankrupt, in the case of Monopoly) or to quit. He got bored real easy.

Then, me or Ponyboy would get out. Usually me first. I wasn't very good at board games. But when one of us gets out, we stay at the table and play with the other until they get out as well. Then Darry is left playing with the parents. Since he's older, they always have conversations that whenever Ponyboy and I try to join, we hear, "stay out of grown folks' business."

Monopoly takes a long time to play, and by the time both Ponyboy and I were out, it was already near midnight.

We both made a unanimous decision to leave the table. It kinda went without saying. We just get each other like that.

"What do you wanna do now?" I asked him.

He shrugged, and then yawned.

"You wanna watch a movie in my room?"

He nodded and we went upstairs into my room. He sat on my bed and pulled the comforter over him as I turned on the TV and put on some random movie, whatever was playing.

I crawled into bed next to him, on the side closest to the wall.

"How long do you think they'll be playing for?" He asked.

I laughed. "I hope not until someone wins. That'll take forever."

"I'm tired," he replied. "I might just fall asleep right here."

I shrugged. "You can, or you can go home with Sodapop."

He seemed to get even more sleepy. "I don't think I can get up now."

I pressed the off button on the TV remote and turned off the lights. I was tired too. By the time my head hit the pillow, I could already hear Ponyboy snoring, fast asleep.

~~~

I was woken up from the sunlight hitting my face. My bed had a big window on the wall it was against. The sunlight shining in warmed my skin.

Somehow while I was sleeping, I'd ended up wrapped in Ponyboy's arms. It made me blush a little bit. Lately I've been feeling a little different around him. Like I liked him... like-liked him. I don't know, it was weird. I've had crushes before but with him I feel something different. But he's my best friend. I could never act on it. It could ruin everything.

I felt his body stir so I flipped around to face him to see if he was awake.

He smiled at me. "How'd you get there?"

I felt my cheeks redden.

We both continued to lay down for a while, and I never moved from his arms. It was comfy there.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked, making conversation.

I laughed. "I might have slept better if you hadn't taken all the blankets. I'm freezing!"

"Here," he said, tossing me his sweatshirt. "That'll make it up to you."

I smiled and slipped the sweater over my head. It smelled like him. I never want to take it off.