A Better Boyfriend (GirlxGirl)

Six- Destiny

"This is heaven," Scarlet said to me, as she closed her eyes and embraced the music.

"It's called Nicotine," I replied.

"I love it. I'm going to add it to all my playlists," she said.

Now, it was my turn to smile again. Scarlet had a reputation for getting me to do that.

"I'm glad you like it," I replied.

Scarlet moved her shoulder length brown hair over one shoulder and looked towards me for a moment.

"How is it that this has been one of the best mornings I've had in a while?" Scarlet asked.

"Maybe because you've been spending your mornings the wrong way for a while, darlin'," I replied. Honestly, I wasn't sure who had allowed me to be so confident today, but I wasn't going to complain about it.

"I'm sorry I've taken so long to spend time with you, Dest," Scarlet said.

"Hey, it's alright."

If I was anything, then it was patient. Patient to a naïve extent, some may say.

I offered Scarlet a kind smile.

"I'm here for you, Scarlet. You don't have to hang out with me all the time for that to remain true," I assured her. "But... you do need to stop spending so much time with people who walk all over you."

"People don't-"

"I've seen what Chase's friends are like and with absolutely no due respect, they're imbeciles. You can do so much better," I blurted.

"Than Chase or his friends?" Scarlet asked.

"I won't dignify that question with an answer at this moment in time," I said.

Scarlet shook her head in gentle amusement.

"Yeah. I suppose his friends do sort of suck, huh?" she asked.

She could say that twenty times over, whatever did the trick of getting her to truly understand it.

"Will you ever change your mind on him?" Scarlet asked.

"Probably not," I said. One of my weaknesses? I was a damn stubborn person when I wished to be. It wasn't as though Scarlet didn't know this, though.

She looked a little saddened by that statement, which made me feel bad, but I could not easily change the way I felt. If I could, perhaps our friendship wouldn't seem quite so complicated at times.

"Do you want to stay at my house, tonight?" I asked.

Scarlet thought over my question for a moment.

"Sure," she said in agreement.

"Chase won't be weird about it, will he?" I asked her.

Scarlet just gave a shrug of her shoulders.

"You're my best friend, Dest. He will simply have to deal with it," she stated.

God, she was so nice. She was like a garden of flowers... and Chase was the unfortunate and unwelcome tractor roaming through it.

Scarlet squinted in the sun and I would have felt tempted to offer her my sunglasses, but maybe that would have been a stupid thing to do.

"You want to go?" I asked her. "It's getting a little warm."

Her eyes met mine and she nodded in agreement, with a sweet smile upon her peachy lips.

"Let's go," she said.

The two of us stood up, walked out of the field and made our way down the pavement towards my house.

Scarlet blinked a few times when we got indoors. I supposed her eyes were adjusting to the changing light levels.

"It is bright out there," she said.

I released a gentle laugh in response to her comment. She wasn't wrong. I had always liked the summer, though, far more than the winter.

Once Scarlet's eyes had properly adjusted to the new light level, they seemed to twinkle as the golden sun shone in through one of the windows.

"How are you feeling?" I asked her. I acknowledged that it had been a little while since I had last checked on the emotional state of my best friend, so I thought it a good idea to do just that.

"Better for being with you," Scarlet replied. She seemed to be a little surprised that she had blurted out the words, but then she smiled a sincere smile that let me know that she meant them.

I couldn't believe we were alone again.

I couldn't believe we were at my house together.

It had been years since the two of us had last spent some time together.

There was a part of me that understood that Scarlet needed her time with Chase, because of course, she did. He was her boyfriend. There was also a part of me that envied him for getting to spend so much time with her when I would be lucky to get an hour or more at times.

What were the chances of this happening? And only days before her birthday, too? I was going to have to make sure I got her a really good present this year. That's not to say I didn't get her a good present every year, but that would be bragging. Anyway, the point is that she had to deal with a lot of stupid stuff from Chase recently and I wanted to take her mind off all of that.

"Do you still think the two of us should get away somewhere?" Scarlet asked me, after a moment.

"It would be amazing," I said, but I knew I was running away with my thoughts.

Scarlet didn't seem to mind. She entertained my thoughts, sometimes. It was nice to not be shut down right away like I often was by some of my friends. They clearly didn't understand my desire to travel, to wander, to explore and lose myself in the universe. Nothing made me happier than that. The blissful uncertainty of the unknown.

"We could just explore Europe- start off small, you know," I suggested.

I'd seen enough of England to want to go and see new sights in another country, now. I hadn't travelled nearly as much as I'd like to have done before I reached the age of twenty-six.

"I like that idea," said Scarlet.