Faking Smiles

The Meadow

We got to the meadow and I was immediately comforted by the sight of our old treehouse. The walls were purple and the roof was black, there was just enough room for a 2 beanbags, one black and one white. We rebuilt it a few years ago because we grew out of the board games, the coloring books, and the bright yellow and red walls. My dad helped us, it was fun. I froze. My dad helped us. Past tense, because I killed him. I closed my eyes, trying to force myself to stop thinking about my dad.
"Sage?" I opened my eyes to see Gen staring at me, "you okay?"
I simply nodded, not wanting to make the effort to speak. She stared for a bit longer before turning back and walking towards the treehouse. We got to the base of our tree and just looked up at the house, surrounded by the overgrowth of branches that made the treehouse seem inaccessible.
"Wanna go up?" Gen tried to get me to talk, but I just nodded.
She sighed and climbed up first. Usually, one of us goes up and the other stays on the ground until they're in the treehouse, but we both went up at once. Gen began climbing, closely followed by me. Crack! The branch Gen was on broke and she fell onto me, and we fell about 5 feet to the ground. I was pinned to the ground by the impact of the fall and the person on top of me. After a few seconds, Gen got up and realized she was on me
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" She realized she was on me and got up,"Are you okay?"
I nodded. I got up and kept climbing, Gen followed me up. We skipped the broken branches and made it to the treehouse. Gen sank into the white beanbag, so I took the black one. We always talked about how the beanbags represented our friendship, like yin and yang. I was dark and morbid and she was bright and bubbly. We were opposites but that's why we're so close. We didn't talk for a long time.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
I nodded my head.
"You're lying. I'm not stupid. Do you want to talk about it?"
I shook my head.
"Okay..." She kept talking, but I just wanted to sit in silence, "what's up?"
I shrugged.
"Do you remember Derek Green? He asked me out, but I said no of course. I heard that Cody Williams likes you. He's nice, smart."
I shrugged again.
"Um...have you taken the bio test yet? I think I failed."
I shook my head. She didn't keep talking, ran out of thing to say, I guess.
We sat in silence staring at each other and listening to the birds chirping and the wind dancing through the leaves. I analyzed her face. Worry etched into her furrowed brows and the guilt in her beautiful eyes. To anyone but me, the guilt would seem odd, but this is Gen. She's guilty because I'm guilty and she can't do anything about it. I feel kind of bad. I mean, she's just trying to make me feel better, but I keep blocking her out. I just don't want to talk, I'm just numb. I'm not even guilty or sad at this point. I'm just empty. I need to feel something. I could feel Gen's eyes piercing into my soul. I looked up at her.
She looked at me for a minute before turning to fully face me.
She started ranting, "I know you're hurt, but you can't just push me away! You have to talk to me, I'm your best friend for f--"
I smashed my lips onto hers. I don't know why I did it , but I did. I don't really know what I was expecting either. Did I expect her to kiss back? Did I expect her to push me away? It was like all time froze, and my lips were on hers. I jumped back, realizing the idiocy of my actions. She tensed up, relaxed a little, then tensed up again, maybe she was still processing, or was in shock. It was stupid, I shouldn't have kissed her. She realized what was happening and jumped off the beanbag.
"What the fuck, Sage!?!"