I finally felt like walking again.
And all it took was plastering my regrets onto my bedroom wall and for my best friend to go rogue.
After about half an hour I finally came down the parking garage.
I had watched the sun set after Pedro left.
I entered the bikeway as my phone started ringing.
It was him.
Without further introductions, he immediately handed over it to his dad.
"Hey Ben, you alright?"
"I am, Sir."
"That's good to hear."
"Are you...?"
"Well, earlier – there was a lot going on. Sorry for just calling out of nowhere and being a bother to you and your mom, it's..., I'm sorry."
"No, it's alright. I get it. It's Pedro's fault."
His short resounding laughter sounded like a lion's roar.
Kind of like Pedro's.
Just..., more like a lion's.
You could hear how he moved away from Pedro. Closed a door behind him.
"Thank you for looking after my son is what I really meant to say. Because, you know, since he met you he's been changing. He was always kind of gloomy since the incident with Adrian but, you know, he's doing better now."
You could hear that he was moved by the tiny trembles in his powerful voice.
It felt monumental. And like empathy.
Hearing further meaning behind sentences.
In their structures and phrasings.
I was moved to say the least.
That he called.
That he meant every word he said.
"Thank you", he said. Again.
I tried to figure out how to express this ball of warmth, hiding behind my ribcage.
I felt respected.
Like there was more meaning to what I was doing than I anticipated.
"I don't know what to say – I mean, he does these things for me, too, so I'm not doing much, really."
"Then everything's fine now?"
"Everything's fine."
We said goodbye and hung up.
A single tear flooded my cheek.
Relief.
Talking to Pedro had slowly but surely made me realize that there's a world surrounding me. And it's alive.
I always thought it revolved around Linda.
Now it felt like it was mine entirely.
I noticed the midnight witch's train rails not too far from where I was standing and the brightest of moons slowly creeping up behind it.
I told myself to go back there.
YOU ARE READING
What do the stars feel when they look at Us?
Teen FictionBen starts to care. About you. About people. About his girlfriend. About feelings and being a person. Growing up. But it's difficult. Seemingly, especially, for him. And he's failing. Miserably. So he's starting to look for answers in the stars. Mos...
