All The Things I've Yet to Do

Chapter Sixteen

I choose not to tell the others about what happened with Christian. Instead, I lie that his mom called and needed him to watch his sister. If they don’t believe me, they keep that to themselves.

It’s been several days since then, and there have been no further developments, whether with him or my mom. I have made attempts to talk to her, but it seems that she’s purposely avoiding me. Every time I enter the same room as her, she gets up and leaves.

To avoid the crippling depression of being at home, I decide to message Ace and see if he’s free today to take me driving. I’m not in the mood to drive to be honest, but with Ari at Justin’s, he is my next choice for human interaction. He responds saying that he finishes work late tonight, but he’d be happy to pick me up after if I feel like hanging out.

I accept his offer, and occupy myself by watching movies to pass the time. Ace comes to get me around 9 o’clock. When we get to his house, we pass Don and Addison in the kitchen. She’s on the counter with him between her legs as she stares lovingly into his eyes. Deciding not to interrupt their disgustingly cute moment, I skip the greetings and follow Ace up the stairs to his room.

Collapsing onto his bed, I watch as he switches his work shirt to a clean one, and pulls off his sweatpants, revealing a pair of shorts. After this, he grabs his game controller and turns on the TV before joining me on the bed.

“Adonis is moving out,” he says, fumbling the joystick to select the Netflix application.

“With Addison?” I ask, an image of the couple still fresh in my mind.

He shakes his head. “Nah, but they’ve been getting pretty serious and he’s 24 now, so I think he just wants his own space.”

“That’s true. The only reason I’m still home is because I get to spend half of the year at school,” I admit. “When is he leaving?”

“He found an apartment last week so he’ll be gone by the first of next month,” Ace answers, settling on a comedy movie.

In a couple of days, there will be one less Scott in the house. The thought of it almost makes me sad. “Can I have his room?”

“Of course not,” he laughs, “that would mean seeing your face every day.”

I try to push him off of the bed, but that boy is like a boulder. Ace starts dying with laughter at my lame attempt and I say, “Just the other day you were saying that you want to spend more time with me, now look at how you’re treating me.”

“I was joking, My,” he assures. “Mom and dad would love that, but after a week of you and Ariel together, they’d be glad that they stopped at five.”

The thought of living here makes me smile, but I know that I would miss my dad. He’s the type to swear he’s okay with me moving here as long as it makes me happy. We settle into silence as the movie plays, until I feel a pair of eyes on me. I turn towards Ace and flash a smile.

He responds with a small grin. “Tell me about your program.”

To his random curiosity, I begin explaining the field of forensic psychology and criminology. By the end, I’m ranting about how flawed the legal system is, especially for marginalized communities. I finish with, “To call it a ‘Justice System’ is completely wrong. They don’t care about justice, they care about themselves.”

I need to catch my breath after rambling for several minutes. When I finally meet Ace’s eyes, he has a dreamy look. “I love how passionate you are about this.”

Looking away from the intensity of his gaze, I say, “Well, yeah. It’s fucked up.”

Rather than replying, he pulls me into a hug. As he pulls away, I’m reminded of that night at the lake, as well as Christian’s words the night that I slept over.