"You should've stayed home and let me do this."
Mom paid no attention to me as she eyed a bag of mini chocolate bars before tossing them into the basket. She had only been released from the hospital for a few hours ago and was already she ignoring the doctor's orders. She should've be in bed resting, not wandering around a Walgreens.
"I needed to pick up my prescription," she told me, adding a few more bags of assorted candy to her basket.
"I could've done that for you."
"If you want to help me, reach down there and grab that bag of Tootsie Pops."
I did as she said. "You are so hard headed."
"Just like my daughter," she said, over her shoulder as she continued down the aisle.
I was about to point out that what she said was a lie, but then I remembered it was true.
Four years ago, I was sneaking out of the house at night to hang with whatever boy I was obsessing over at the time. Thirteen-year-old me wasn't exactly winning any awards for discipline.
Thinking back to those times made me cringe. That was a part of my past I absolutely did not want back.
Those days weren't all bad, though. I was on the dance team, I had a purse-making business and for a brief moment I even had a boyfriend. That's the side of things I wanted to get back to.
My thoughts were interrupted by someone grabbing my arm, pulling into a different aisle.
I was in the beverage aisle with someone who thought it was okay to drag people around. I was ready to mace the stranger, until I realized who it was.
"Remember when I asked you to be my jelly?"
Miles stood before me. He still refused to accept the fact that it was now fall as he wore a short sleeved shirt. He was, however, still wearing my beanie.
"You scared me," I said through gritted teeth, punching him in the arm.
"Sorry," he said, hurriedly. "Please, be my jelly."
He looked desperate now. Holding back my laughter I asked, "Why does this matter so much?"
"Because of the bet," he told me. "C'mon, Mermaid, do this one thing for me."
"What's the problem? You don't have the money to pay him if you lose?"
"That's not the bet," he informed me. "The bet is that if I can find someone to wear a costume with me I get fifty dollars, but if I can't..." He let his words trail off. "Just do this for me, please?"
He dropped down onto his knee, clasping his hands together as he begged.
"Wow, you're really desperate," I said and he nodded in agreement.
"If I lose this bet, it will plague my life forever. My grandkids will be affected by this," he told me.
I couldn't hold in my laughter any longer as I looked down at him. Whatever Owen was going to have Miles do if he lost the bet really had him bothered. Seeing that frantic, desperate side of him was sad. Funny, but sad.
He took my hand in his, the contact causing a breath to get caught in my throat. "Please, say yes."
His puppy dog eyes didn't work on me the night before. I believe it was due to a lack of light. Now in the bright, florescent lights of Walgreens they managed to get me to utter, "Yes."
His face lit up into a bright smile as he erected himself. "She said yes!" He shouted, throwing his arms up in the air. A few people eyed us curiously as they passed by.
"Are you done?"
"Thank you," he said. "You just saved me from having to dress up as Elsa from Frozen."
That was something I would've loved to see.
"Is it too late to back out?"
He ignored my question, continuing his little rant. "On Halloween, I will be fifty dollars richer and still in possession of my dignity."
"What dignity?" I snorted. "You were just on your knees begging me to dress up as a jar of jelly."
He threw his head back as he laughed. "Was that an insult or are you flirting with me?"
The smirk on his face let me know that if I said it wasn't flirting, he'd still think it was. So, I simply rolled my eyes at him.
"Since you said yes, I guess I can give you this back." He reached into his pocket, pulling out a phone I soon realized belonged to me.
I'd been so worried about Mom I didn't even notice I didn't have it.
"I have two concerns with your phone," he said, handing it over to me. "First, you take a lot of selfies. Like, a lot. I think you might need an intervention. Second—"
"Wait," I cut in. "So, if I said no you weren't going to give this back to me?"
"Well, you said yes. So, it doesn't matter now," he said. "Anyways, my second concern is that you only have four contacts: Mom, Nikki, Jem and Kimber. Also, you have zero social media apps."
I shrugged, failing to see a problem with that as I dropped my phone into my purse and made a mental note to add a passcode. "Yeah, so what?"
"You phone shows no indication that you had a life before Westbrooke," he told me. "Which begs the question: Are you in witness protection?"
"If I was in witness protection, wouldn't tell you defeat its purpose?"
He though about this for a moment. "Good point."
I let out a small laugh, shaking my head at him.
"So, how's your mom doing?" he asked, out of the blue.
"Oh, she's great," I replied. "She's doing laps around the store as we speak."
His eyebrows quirked up. "I thought the doctor would've put her on bed rest."
"He did."
"Mom's a rebel," he nodded approvingly. "I like it."
I didn't share his approval of my mom not following the doctor's orders. She said she was fine, but that didn't stop me from worrying about her. Was that how she felt about me when I would tell her I was fine? That would explain why she was so adamant about me going to counseling.
"You alright, Mermaid?" Miles pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts, his brows drawing together.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
The concern on his face morphed into a crooked grin. "It's the eyes isn't it? Girls are constantly getting lost in them."
That boy really did love to compliment himself. Even if what he said had some truth to it.
"How about you get lost?"
He sucked in a sharp breath, placing his hands over his heart. "You're cold." With that he turned on heels, getting ready to walk away.
"Wait," I said.
He came to a halt, turning to face me. "I'm starting to feel like a yo-yo."
"Turn around."
He did as I told him. "Could've said please."
I ignored him as I looked at the design on his shirt. It was a deep blue color with stars on it. It would look nice as an accent wall in my room. Maybe on the wall where I'll put my bed?
"You done checking out my butt?"
Of course that'd be what he thought I was doing.
"Actually, I was looking at your shirt," I informed him. "I like it."
"Was that a compliment?" He asked, facing me now.
"Yes, but only for your shirt," I said. "I like the design and I want to paint it on my wall. I just need a picture of it." I rummaged around my purse for my phone, and when I looked up all of the air was knocked out of my lungs.
Miles had taken off his shirt, holding it out to me. My eyes were shamefully glued to his well-defined body. A red hot blushed crept up to my cheeks and I quickly looked away.
"That was not necessary," I said, focusing my attention on a row of Diet Dr Pepper and tried to delete the image of him from my mind. But the way the white tank he wore clung to him and left no room for imagination was burned into the back of my eyelids. "I was just going to take picture."
"Well, it's off now. He shrugged, forcing the shirt into my hand.
Sneaking a peek at him, I noticed how un-bothered he was about being exposed in the middle of a store. I had to admit that I admired his confidence.
"You just find any reason to show off don't you?"
He simply smiled at this and said, "I'll see you later, Mermaid."
+ + +
"I hope I can take off this thing by next month," Mom complained, referring to the sling. "The girls and I have a gig playing at the Fall Festival."
"The Fall Festival?" I questioned, setting her plate in front of her. "What's that?"
"Exactly what it sounds like, Einstein," she laughed. "A festival that happens during the fall. Westbrooke has one every year. We even went a few times."
The memories of rigged carnival games, candy apples and hay rides came back to me. We hadn't gone since I was, like, eleven, but I remembered that I had a lot of fun.
"Right, I remember now," I said, setting my own plate down at the island before taking my seat. "I'm sleep deprived, okay? That chair at the hospital wasn't very comfortable."
"I told you to go home and sleep," she said, taking a bite of her rice. "Anyways, the festival starts on November 11th. You'll be there, right? I'll need you there as my good luck charm."
Shoveling some rice into my mouth, I purposely avoided the question. The festival was a huge event and if I remembered correctly, lots of people from Adsgrove attended. I don't know what I'd do if I ran into Tasha or any of the other girls again.
"You are coming, right?" Mom prodded.
I shrugged, pushing the chicken around on my plate. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"A lot of people go to that thing," I told her, sipping on my soda.
"By 'a lot of people' do you mean your old friends?" she asked, glancing up from her food to look at me.
I nodded sheepishly. A silence stretched between us as we continued to eat our food.
"Four years," Mom said, eliminating the silence. "That's how long I had to watch you sitting at home alone in your room. It was hard for me, watching you wasting your life away. I thought the move would fix that."
"It did," I argued. "I've been out of the house more."
"Once," she pointed out. "You hung out with people from school once."
She was right. Despite having a new group of friends my social life was still nonexistent.
"Well, I'm going to start making a sample of the cheer uniform with some girls from the cheer squad," I told her. "So I'll be staying out later for a while."
She smiled proudly at that and then it came. The hug. Which, luckily, wasn't too tight due to her shoulder.
"Just know," she said, releasing me from the hug. "If you're out past ten there will be repercussions."
I laughed, nodding to let her know I understood.