The Novelty of Existence

17

𝚂𝙰 ⋆ 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 ⋆ 𝙰𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗

The energy in the van was getting weirder and weirder. Mo was the one acting off, and everyone knew it. The others definitely thought it was all about Danny, but it wasn't. Not everything was about Danny with Mo. She was a different sort of weird than how she was when she was angry. The Saskatchewan plains made the sunset drag on forever, and I inspected her movements closely as we all watched the sun dip deeper into the distant horizon.

Leaned against the van, parked in front of a cornfield. The moment was peaceful, but the energy was off. I always loved unpacking the mysteries of my friends. Sometimes when I tried to figure stuff out, I would find something bad, like with Wes's step-brothers. But, my morbid curiosity always won.

Isla spun around slowly, letting her skin soak in the last drops of sunlight. I watched Danny watching her, entranced. What an idiot. Wes started to imitate her, which made her laugh. She hadn't been around Wes long enough to find him irritating yet. They spun together and I felt Mo's head hit my shoulder. Her head was heavy, but I pretended not to notice. This was her way of reaching out to me.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝟿 ⋆ 𝚂𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔

Aiden had been dealing with it for a while by the time Spring Break rolled around. In his moments of clarity, he would hate that he was hiding from his friends. But, this hole wasn't one he could easily climb out of. He felt stuck.

During winter break of that year, after many secret counselling sessions with Mrs. Juma, Aiden's Father had finally conceded on the medication front. Aiden felt like slowly, a cloud was lifting from in front of him. He started to see more clearly. He started to miss his friends.

After more than half a year of barely hanging out with his friends, pretending to be tied up with homework, Aiden finally ached for them. He finally felt something other than the void. On the last day before Spring Break, Aiden decided to approach Wes.

His friends hadn't given up on him all this time. Though they had assumed his Dad had a tighter leash on him because of the incident at the water park, so they never pushed too hard. Aiden wasn't sure what he was going to say to his friends, but he knew he wanted to be around them no matter what. He just hoped they still wanted to be around him.

He found Wes by chance in the hallway during lunch. Wes was one of those people who would walk around the school until he found people doing something he was interested in. During lunch, Danny and Aiden always studied, and Mo always napped.

"Hey, Wes." Aiden said in a too-small voice. Wes's head snapped over, and he grinned his toothy crocodile grin.

"Long time no see buddy," He responded, wrapping an arm around Aiden's shoulder. It was as easy as that with Wes. No explanation was needed. As they started walking down the hall together, a voice rang out from behind them.

"Hey, where's the rest of the team?"

It was Chad Bowman. He was popular and tall, and he seemed irked by the fact that Wes wasn't particularly interested in his own squad. It was kind of sad. Wes turned around and shrugged, still unbothered. Aiden smiled.