Teenage Diaries

Ideas

"I almost forgot. I'm taking you out tomorrow." Jake said abruptly and I sat up straight.

"What? Why?" I exclaimed. Oh shit, that sounded rude. I quickly corrected myself.

"I mean- why so sudden?" I said and he looked at me through the rearview mirror before keeping his eyes back on the road home.

"Why? Can't I spend some time with you alone?" he said and pretended to wipe a tear off his cheek. I couldn't resist giggling.

"Aw, stop being so dramatic Jakey. We'll go, okay?" I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

We reached home in another ten minutes and I waved him goodbye as he sped off.

I opened the door to my house and was greeted by Snow who bounded about happily. My mom appeared at the doorway with a spatula in her hand.

"Hey Angie. Tanya's upstairs. Have you guys decided what to give Ashley yet?" My mom asked and I sighed.

"No, we can't think of the perfect thing. That's why I called Tanya." I said.

"Shouldn't you call your other friends too? There's May, Lucy..."

"Mom, I'll talk to them." I quickly cut her off, not wanting to be reminded of Lucy.

I hurried upstairs and went to my room, finding Tanya sitting on the bed, casually flipping through some magazine.

"hey," she said and lay the magazine on the bedside table.

"Hi, I'll just get my laptop out and we'll go through Pinterest. We'll probably find some good idea for Ashley out there." I said then walked over to the study table where my laptop lay, amongst some schoolbooks.

I flopped on the bed and switched it on.

The silence was awkward. It was odd; that the both of us were so mute when we never stayed quiet whenever we were together. Why wasn't she saying anything?

The laptop screen brightened up and I looked at the desktop picture of Ashley, Tanya, May and Lucy and I making funny faces at the camera for a second before going on Pinterest. I typed in 'ideas for best friends' and in a second thousands of picture ideas popped up. We grew busy for a while in browsing through the pictures and Tanya scribbled down potential ideas in a tiny notepad. After half an hour, I closed the window.

"So what are we doing?" I asked her and she looked into the notepad.

"Hmm, so we're definitely doing the photo frame thing where there's a picture for all of us among other things." She said and I nodded.

"Good idea." I agreed.

The idea was that we'd frame up a picture of all of us in a white photo frame. On one end we'd write 'Distance means so little...." And on the other diagonal end we'd write '....When friendship means so much!'. On the remaining corners we'd trace the outline of the States and Germany. It was really meaningful and I think she would like it.

"How about those colour coded baskets?" I suggested.

"We're going to give her this stuff when she's at the airport. So I think, giving her something like that would be impractical and difficult for her to carry." She said. Right, I hadn't thought of that. Smart of Tanya to be so practical.

"And then all of us can do something individually to add our own touch to it. But remember, it has to be meaningful and not materialistic. I'll have to make that clear to May. Her idea of a gift might be an expensive show-piece while Ashley might just sell it off on E-Bay." She said and we giggled.