“Beckett?”, I ask, confused with the body of my ex-best friend standing in front of me.
“Yes, Ms. Lacey?”
I can’t speak, I am full with utter confusion. The boy I used to laugh with, cherish, adore, was standing in front of me like nothing ever changed between us. I know he has a problem with denial… But this… This is different.
The way he said it, just a few seconds earlier made me feel faint. The smell of his cologne I miss so bad, wafting at my front door.
“Did you hear me? I asked you a question, Lace.”, he says, using a nickname only my closest friends call me.
“You want me to help you with a project? What kind of project? ...Why?”
“Well, Lace. You know, I wasn’t finished with you…”, he says, adding more confusion to the already towering heap, “I’ll see you at 12:30 am, tonight. Slide. Like we used too.”
“Slide? Wait for what?”, I ask. Slide is the place we always used to meet up and sneak out when we WERE friends. Now I never even visited the tree we called Slide because a long time ago we were out on our night journeys and we saw a squirrel slide down a tree branch, and thus forward, we named the green willow tree Slide.
“Lace, I said before…”, he says with kind eyes, “A project.”
I watch him walk away and yell at him to come back and explain why he decided to show up like this and make me sneak out with him. I shut up when I see my mom approaching the kitchen, open to hearing everything happening at the front door.
“Who was that, hunny?”, she asks like my pleasant mother would.
“Oh. Just some stranger.”, I reply, only half lying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hours have passed and I still can’t get the strange occurrence with Beckett out of my head. Why did he come here? What does he want? What does he mean by project? He confused me earlier today than he has ever before. I am debating whether I should go to Slide.
I start walking to Slide. I look at my phone screen.
10:46
What am I doing here so early? I can’t even decipher myself.
I walk past Mr. and Mrs. Pelkins house and look at their 6 cats staring at me and meowing as I step into their lawn and climb their fence. I want to scream at them shut up and let me take my fucking shortcut. Slide sits directly behind your stupid house, stupid cats.
I approach Slide and already see Beckett leaning against its bark.
“I knew you would come. And you’re early. What a plus, Lace.”, he says to me when I reach him.
“Care to explain, Bucket?”
“Actually no. I wouldn’t care to explain. It’s kind of personal.”
“Then what am I doing here, Buck? Are you just going to drag me here for no reason? What the hell? I’m going home.”
“No. Wait.”, he beckons.
“Why should I?! You left me and now it’s my turn to leave you!”
“Guess what day it is, Lace.”
“I don’t know, Thursday?! Stop calling me that, you’re acting like you never left me because some hoe wanted your dick up in her!”
“No. It’s exactly one year from when I left you. And I didn’t leave you because of Chelsea…”
“THEN WHY DID YOU DITCH ME?!”
“Lace, calm down.”
“STOP… Fine. Why did you think that you--”
“I left because I was scared, Lacey.”
“Scared of what?!”
“Scared of you.”
“WHY THE HELL? IF THAT’S HOW YOU FEEL THEN… then… UGH… I don’t know…”
“Lacey, I need you tonight.”
“I’m going home.”
“You can go home whenever you’d like… I just… I just need you for this. After you can hate me all you want. I need you right now though.”
“WHY?!”
“Because without you… There would be no project at all…”
“Find someone else. You proved to me last year that you don’t need me.”
“Lace… Please… You want this more than you think.”
“I don’t even know what this is.”
“You’ll figure it out, hun.”
He walks towards me and grabs both of my hands and places them in his.
“Mud pies.”, he says.
“Mud pies? No wa--”
“Mud pies, Lace. Mud pies.”
