Who Can You Trust?

1

Here we are, the six of us, heading into our senior year together.

There's me, Raine, the optimistic one, Avery, the chill one, Jasper, the reliable one, Stanley, the sweet one, Alexa, the gorgeous one, and River, the comforting one. All together we are an unbreakable team who have been together for years. Nothing could break us apart. Or at least that's what I thought.

I lay there in bed waiting to get up for out first day of senior year. I'm scrolling on my insta looking at Jaspers post from when I let them give me my first tattoo. They are a very talented, unlicensed, tattoo artist so they pay us to let them practice on us. In the picture Avery is making me look at her to distract me from the pain and River is beside me laughing and eating fruit snacks.

I think back and remember that's the first time I realized I might have feelings for Avery. When I told Alexa she was pumped because she would finally not be the only one in our group who is in a relationship, though her and Stan are very cute together.

Except there is another problem. I've liked River for years. I have no idea why I've never told her. I guess I'm just scared of rejection because River never really talks about liking anyone. Honestly I don't think she's been with anyone since freshman year.

I get distracted by the sound of my door opening and I see my little brother Bailey walk into my room. 

"What do you want?" I ask with an attitude because its only 6 am and we don't have school until 8:20.

"Don't have an attitude gosh, I just wanted to see if you wanted to go to starbucks or something?" He ask quietly trying not to wake up our mom.

"Bailey...Its 6 am." I say obviously still tired.

"I have my own money." He says knowing that I would get out of bed.

"Well lets go." I say while getting out of bed laughing.

"Shut up, you're always so loud and mom would kill us if she knew" He says rolling his eyes and closing my door.

I go to my closet and throw on a grey undershirt, a black ACDC shirt, and some jeans. I go to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth when I hear my door open and close again. I look over and Bailey has on a brown sweatshirt and jeans with his black converse. 

"You know the cashier won't care if you look cute or not" I hear him say while I do my eyeliner.

"So, I'm not like you and your raggedy friends, I can't leave the house without eyeliner." I say trying to keep my lines straight.

" Or you're just insecure because you've worn eyeliner for so long you don't like the way you look without it" he says back while quietly laughing.

"Oh shut up" I say while throwing my eyeliner at him. "How do you know so much about girls anyways? Do you have a girlfriend?" I say teasing him.

"The real question is why don't you have a girlfriend." He says throwing my eyeliner back at me.

"Haha so funny" I say rolling my eyes and walking back into my room. "Pass me my converse" I say while sitting on my bed.

I put on my shoes and grab my car keys. Once I get outside Bailey is already in the car.

"Guess what...I'll let you put on your music" I say already regretting it.

"You don't have to look disgusted" he says while I pull out of the driveway. "We like the same music Rai" he says while putting on 505 by Artic Monkeys.

"Good choice" I say while humming.

"But I crumble completely when you cry" Bailey sings loudly in my ear. "It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye" I sing  back while laughing.

"I'm always just about to go and spoil a surprise, take my hands off of your eyes too soon" he sings while I pull into the starbucks parking lot.

We get out the car and walk in the starbucks. "Do you know what you want?" I ask looking back at Bailey. "Yea, a venti iced white chocolate mocha and a blueberry muffin" he says while texting someone.

"Who's that you're texting...your girlfriend?" I ask still trying to see if he likes someone. "Will you let your theory of me having a secret girlfriend." he says putting his phone in his back pocket.

We walk up to the cashier and I order a venti strawberry acai refresher, a venti iced white chocolate mocha, and two blueberry muffins. We walk to the corner booth and sit while waiting for our food.

"You still never answered me, who were you texting" I ask again while getting my phone out of my pocket.

"It was Nova." he says while looking at my phone. "The real question is why are you looking at old pictures of you, Avery, and River?"

"I-um...I still haven't decided which of them I should choose". I say scrolling on River's account at old pictures of us.

There was a picture of us from her birthday. She let me do her makeup for her party and I was sitting on her lap while doing her eyeliner. Alexa caught us off guard and took the picture. She said that we looked in love. Ever since that picture River fell in love with the idea of taking pictures of everything, specifically with me and Jasper. By far her favorite picture that we took this summer is a picture of me and her on the steps in front of her house and she is behind me hugging me. She has used that picture for everything since then. Her wallpaper, she gave me a polaroid print out of it, its the cover picture of the scrapbook she made, and she even got it framed and has it beside her bed.

"We both know who you really love Rai" Bailey says, knocking me out of my thought, while getting up to get our food.

He's right though. I know who I really love. I've known for years. It's always been River. Avery is just really attractive and comforts me sometimes. But River, we both know how we feel about each other we just don't know how to tell each other.

Bailey gets back to the table and hands me my drink and muffin. "How do you know who I really love?" I ask while sipping my lemonade. 

"It's River, it's always been her. Ever since her birthday party and realized that you're feelings weren't one sided. You two started going on dates and didn't even realize that they were dates. I mean you have a wall of polaroid's that are just you two, how did you not know?" he says while unwrapping his muffin.

And that's when I realize. I've always loved her, I just never realized.

"Speaking of your girl...she's walking towards us right now"

I look over to see River in a cream colored tank top, jeans, and a bag she knitted, walking over to our table. 

"Hey my favorite set of siblings!" she says while sliding in to the booth beside me. She instantly hugs me and we end up hugging so long Bailey said "Get a room jeez" while laughing.

"Shut up I missed my Rai" she says while pulling me to where I'm leaning on her. In her defense we hadn't seen each other in 2 weeks because she went to theatre camp.

"So how was camp" I ask while picking up my lemonade. "It was cool I guess, thanks for the lemonade Mi Amor" she says while sipping my drink. 

"Really Riv" I say while rolling my eyes giving her my cup. I hear Bailey giggle in the background and I kick him under the table.

"Ow, not my fault your girlfriend takes your drink every time you hang out" he says while River laughs.

"He's right, its your fault you pick really good drinks" she says still laughing.

I roll my eyes and check my phone realizing its 7:30 and we have to get back to the house now.

"Ok Bails we gotta go before mom freaks" I say while picking up my bag. "You can come Riv...if you want?" 

"Sure why not" she says while getting up to leave.