Favorite Friend

White Teeth Teens

"Aaron, hi!" My heart drops. Chloe is entering the tennis court through a hole in the fence on the other side, gathering the fabric of her long yellow skirt in her hands. Squinting into the sun, she beams up at Aaron. "Sorry I'm late, I had to help my mom with the groceries. How long have you been waiting?"

"Just a few minutes," Aaron says. The sound of his voice makes something in my chest seize up. "You're at least earlier than everyone else."

Chloe laughs, a bright noise like wind chimes, and hurries up the steps to where he's sitting. I want to look away, but I can't; watching Aaron get up to hug her, his hands on her back and her face pressed against his shoulder, is like witnessing a car crash. Except I'm the voyeur and the victim at the same time, if the way my stomach twists is anything to go by. He lifts her up a little and spins her, to the point that she has to hold onto the straw hat that's sitting on top of her perfect golden hair, and all I can hear is engines roaring and metal screeching.

After a moment, he sets Chloe down and she sinks onto the seat next to his. I suddenly realize that they're in the exact same spot where Aaron and I sat two weeks ago, with his eyes on me and a summer full of possibilities at our fingertips. That day feels like it's lightyears away from now.

The thing is, they look good together, both of them flawless and vibrant against the faded colors of the tennis court, two perfect flowers in the middle of the desert. I don't know why I never noticed how white Aaron's teeth are when you really look at them.

"So," Chloe says, straightening her skirt a little. "How are you feeling?"

"Jetlagged as fuck," he laughs. "My body is running on three hours of sleep and two cups of coffee."

"What about... the other thing? Are you feeling a bit better?"

He gives a small shrug, the grin crumbling off his face. "I don't know. I don't really want to talk about it, I think. What about you?"

"I'm okay. Talking to you really helped." She offers him a smile. "It was nice to text with you every day while you were gone."

Another crashing sound, sirens. Every day. He talked to her every day and didn't text me once.

"Me too," he says. "Oh, uhm, did you see the playlist I sent you?"

I feel like I can almost smell the sharp stench of burnt tires and gasoline. My mind flashes back to the night in his room; Did you take the quiz I sent you? The one about alternative love languages?

-Yeah.

And? What did you get?

-Sharing food. You?

Making playlists.

I thought I was the only one he ever sent them to.

"I did! I've been listening to it nonstop," Chloe says. "You have such good taste in music."

"Thanks." Aaron beams at her. If he just turned his head a little bit, he could see me standing next to the bleachers, but his eyes are fixed on nothing but her. I know exactly what she must feel like under his gaze, light-headed and warm at being the center of his attention. When Aaron studies you, the entire world rocks to a stop.

Look at me, I suddenly want to scream. Please just look at me and see what a mess you've made me.

But before I can do anything, loud hollering echoes across the tennis court. "Hey, love birds!" Bryce yells, leaping through the hole in the fence. "Put your clothes back on, the boys are here."

They exchange a glance, both laughing, and scoot a little to the side, away from each other. Bryce plops down in the space between them, slinging his arms around them while Gabe and Lewis sit down in the row above them.

"Where's Cassie?" Chloe asks.

"Dude, I don't know. Babysitting her brother, I think?" Bryce says with a shrug. Chloe nods. "So, AJ, let us hear! How was France?"

Aaron laughs and begins recounting his holiday to them, stories about places and people that I never got to hear, a whole slice of his life that I played absolutely no part in. He looks happy huddled between them, preening under their attention, canary yellow again.

After a few seconds, I can't bear to listen anymore; I turn around and bolt back the way I came, ignoring the thorns snagging at my jeans and scratching at my ankles.

It was stupid of me to think that I could fix everything just by talking to Aaron, by saying something like Sorry about what happened, I don't know what that was about. I was high off my ass. It was nothing serious, right? and it was even more stupid to believe there was a chance he'd object.

I'm not like Chloe. I don't smell like vanilla, and I don't have a wind chime-laugh or a sunshine smile. I'm a walking rain cloud on good days, a thunderstorm on bad ones. 

I don't know why I ever thought a blue sky-boy like Aaron would want to step into my fog and stay there. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Another ouchie, I'm sorry :( (I lowkey snapped with the weather metaphor though if I do say so myself lmao)

Today is kind of a rough day, so maybe tell me about something good that happened to you this week? :)

That's it from me today- I hope you all are doing well and that you enjoyed this chapter, even though it's short and angsty :o

xoxo