Apricity

18✧Pinky Promise

"Look, Roman!" My gaze shifts up to Briar practically skipping over to me. It was lunchtime and she was meeting me in our usual spot in the library.

Briar threw herself on the cushioned chair in front of me. The subtle scent of her perfume wafted around me. She held out a strand of braided yarn between us, wiggling it around in her excitement. "It's your favorite color," she smiles.

I look between her and the braided maroon-colored yarn. She was right, it was my favorite color. I forgot I had told her that before. I didn't know what she wanted me to do with it though, so I stared and waited for her to explain further.

"Here silly," she says with an eye roll. "Hold out your arm." I do as she said and she wastes no time tying the thing around my wrist.

"See look, it's like a little bracelet. I was in my art class today and you know how I always finish my work fast? Well, I found some yarn and then I remember how much I loved making these things all the time when I was younger. Anyway, my teacher said I can borrow some and so I started braiding this-"she stopped to take a little breath. "and then I thought about how dark this red was and then I was like oh my god it's Roman's favorite color!"

She adjusts it on my wrist and finally looks up at me to give me another smile. "So yeah. Now you have a new bracelet." Her smile grows shy. "I mean if you even want it."

"Why?" is all I think to say. Her fingers are still brushing over my arm.

My one-word answer seemed to deflate her a little. "Um- I guess because I still wanted to thank you for..." she goes quiet for a brief pause. I bet she was thinking about the closet incident. "Well for putting up with me I guess, in your own little way."

She shrugs and doesn't leave me a minute to reply. "I know it's a little childish, but some gestures should be kept anyway because they're good old fun. Like friendship bracelets and pinky promises. Stuff like that, don't you think?"

She blinks up at me and finally waits for me to say something. She has half of her blonde hair up and the rest curled over her shoulders. Her black mascara coating her eyelashes made me notice the blue of her eyes and how they aren't all the same shade of color. The rims of her eyes are a darker shade of blue, so dark the outline almost looks black. I hadn't noticed that before.

"Anyway, you don't have to wear it if you don't like it." She reached over again to tug at the thing on my wrist but I flicked her hand away before I could stop myself. She gives me a shocked blink, staring at me in disbelief like she didn't really know if I flicked her or not.

"I never said I didn't like it," I practically snapped at her. The truth was I didn't know how I felt about it, but I sure as hell wasn't going to admit that I didn't say anything because I was too busy noticing her eyes. Jesus.

I ignore her smile when something else catches my eye, nearly causing them to roll at the back of my head. "How is it that you know how to braid yarn but you can't ever get your shoes tied?" I say and reach down to pick up her foot and drop it down on my knee.

"Braiding is repetitive," she defends while adjusting her foot for me. "The same thing over and over. Tying your shoes is too many loops and tugs and twists."

"It's really not. Nobody ever taught you the bunny ear shit?" I finish the knot and drop her foot back down. I gesture at her next foot with a wave of my hand and she plops it on my knee as she makes a face at my question.

"I don't think bunny and shit should be used in the same sentence," she says. "I'm surprised you know any bunny ear shit. I feel like even as a child you would have smacked somebody upside the head for trying to teach you bunny ears."

Julius was the fucker who taught me to tie my shoes. It did involve a lot of arguing that turned into me smacking him upside the head. Not for the bunny ear shit, but because he was pissing me off.

I got lost in the memory until I noticed Briar staring at me funny. She stared a lot, probably as much as I did, but this was different. She looked at me like she was seeing me differently like I was someone else completely. It confused the hell out of me. "What?"

And then her strange look morphs into a little smirk. "I knew it. I just knew you had the cutest smile ever."

Had I smiled? I didn't even know that I did. And she thought it was fucking cute?

"Okay fine, I'm sorry," she says, catching the change in my expression. "It's very handsome, Roman. A very manly type of handsome smile."

I bit the inside of my cheek this time. "Very nice, Bear," I reply sarcastically. She scrunches her nose at me and takes out her book for her usual lunchtime reading.

Briar bounces her foot up and down as she reads and it brings me back to our earlier conversation. "How come you were never taught?"

She looks up from her book and follows my gaze to her shoes, then looks back up. She's quiet for only a moment, maybe deciding if she wants to tell me or not. "I didn't have the nicest foster parents after my dad died. I had been obsessed with velcro shoes before then, so..."

Foster parents. After her dad died. The foster thing made a little more sense but I was still left with more questions.

"What about your mom?" I asked.

She shook her head at me. "Never knew her."

I consider her words. "I never knew my dad," I offer. I never told anyone that before, no one outside my family who already knew. It just felt right to say it after she shared something personal with me.

She thinks on my words for a moment. "Did Julius know him?" She asks.

"Technically we're half brothers, so no. His dad passed away and I guess mine was a deadbeat or something."

"Well-" she cuts herself, frowns at herself, and then tries again. "What about your mom?" she asked me carefully.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't know her," I try to say as simply as I could. I see the small furrow growing in Briar's brow so I quickly change the subject before she asks me questions. "But your aunt, where you live now, is she... nice?"

She considers my question with a small smile. "She's nice."

I studied her words, hoping she meant it. I don't know what she had been through growing up and maybe now wasn't the best time to unravel all of that in the school's library, but I found myself hoping that she meant it.

I hold my pinky finger up at her. It was like a match of excitement caught fire behind her eyes. Her face glowed in a genuine smile. She wraps her pinky around mine and looks me in the eye. "Promise."

I nod in response and we break pinkies. Then, I spend the rest of that time twirling the new maroon band on my wrist while she reads her book.

✎ A/N: I'm getting to some intense chapters in my writing process (I'm on chapter 32) HEHEHE