I began walking outside, walking to where Ari had told me to stand while she was on the way to pick me up. I tried to wipe the tears off my face, not really wanting her to see me vulnerable.
I never liked crying infront of other people, it made me feel weak.
We had both agreed in the texts that I would meet her halfway, she insisted that she could just pick me up outside the house but I needed to walk anyway, to try to calm myself down.
I was just genuinely having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Dola threw that shit in my face like that.
I started laughing to myself, not really knowing exactly why I was laughing, because it was out of nowhere.
I continued my walk, almost being there as there wasn't much longer to walk and I could see Arianna waiting on me in her car that was in the parking lot outside of the gas station.
I looked to my left and right, making sure it was okay to cross the street before I ran over to the other side and got into the car with Ari.
I got into the passenger seat, before greeting her with a small "hi" and wave, her repeating the action back to me.
"You okay?" She asked me. Damnit.
As soon as the words came from her lips, I could feel tears threaten to fall from my eyes.
"Yeah, uh. Yeah, I'm fine." I answered, lying through my teeth as I felt a tear run down my cheek.
Without saying a word, she reached over and wiped the tear away with her thumb, shaking her head. "It's okay."
I smiled at her, turning my head towards the front of the car as she took her hand back and began to drive to her house.
I started dozing off during the car ride, momentarily opening my eyes to see where we were at while the car continued to move along the roads.
I opened my eyes one more time, looking around to see that we were in front of her apartment complex building that she lives in.
Guessing she didn't know that I was awake, she lightly tapped my thigh with her fingers. "We here, Mae."
I hummed in response, stepping out of the car and closing the door behind me and I was about to start following behind her when I felt her take ahold of my hand.
Her grabbing my hand made me feel a little weird inside, but I couldn't really describe the feeling.
I felt like I should've been protesting her grabbing my hand like this, but I didn't really mind it.
We both walked into the house, I guess her parents weren't home because I didn't see anybody else in there besides her.
"Do you wanna start on the project today?" She asked me.
"Yeah, we might as well." I agreed, both of us sitting on the floor before I pulled out my notebook so we could start thinking of ideas for the model we have to build.
We were taking turns drawing designs and adding small details to each other's drawing's, the both of us taking turns pointing out what would look better and stand out more.
We both had an idea of what most of the class would be doing, so we started thinking outside the box.
"Okaay, it's giving mmmm Picasso." I abruptly joked in a deeper voice.
"I should put you out right now just cause you said that."
I laughed at her remark, before I started looking around her room and the more I took in the room, I could make out what her style is.
She had LED letters on the wall that spelled out "Arianna Reeve", with hanging vines going down her wall. Above her bed, she had a small collage of her and herself and her friends, it looked like.
There were also little plants everywhere throughout the room, and the background on her laptop was a picture of a garden.
"You like plants?" I asked her, already knowing the answer.
She stopped drawing and looked at me for a second, laughing softly. "Yea, I do." She simply nodded her head.
"Plants and nature. I like bein' outside." She continued, occasionally shifting her gaze from the paper she was drawing on to me.
"ooh, okay." I spoke in an enthusiastic tone, as the room fell into a comfortable silence, the only sound being our pencils moving against the paper.
"biiiitch" I dragged out abruptly as a means to get her attention. "I think I got it."
"Can I see?" She asked me. I turned the paper towards her so she could get a better view of the sketch I had drawn out.
I turned the paper and she looked kindly onto it, nodding her head. "Okaay because if we don't get a 100 I'm just gone assume something wrong."
I beamed from ear to ear, before I picked up my phone and checked the time, it was close to 10:30 at night.
"I didn't mean to end up staying this late, my bad." I apologized when I realized how long I had been in her house.
"It's cool. I can take you home now, if you want."
"Yeah, I think I overstayed my welcome anyway." I responded, shuffling to my feet, and I guess I stood up too fast, I had to sit right back down, starting to get dizzy when I got to my feet.
I heard her laughing at me, then I saw her wave her hands infront of my eyes. "you good?" she questioned.
I hummed a quick "mhm" in response. "Just give me a second, I'm dizzy."
"okay?" she answered, but it came out as more of a question.
I eventually came back to planet earth and we were on the way back to the house, but this time she was playing music.
The song that's playing is a song that I know so of course I naturally started singing along to it, joining the choir of the radio and Arianna's voice.
We pulled up to the house, and I hesitantly grabbed my phone and gripped the door handle so I could get out of the car. Truthfully I didn't want to be here, and I didn't want to see dola.
I set one foot out of the car, when I heard Ari's voice say something to me.
"Mae?" She called my name, to which I hummed back to let her know I was listening.
"Uh, you wanna come back tomorrow? You know so we can start building the design?" She asked me, making eye contact with me.
I nodded my head, trying to act like I wasn't internally beaming, I placed my other foot on the ground and before I closed the car door behind me I heard her say one last thing.
"Goodnight, Mae."
END OF CHAPTER V.
wc - 1168 words.
