Miss America

Chapter 2 (edited)

       Daisy walks me to a little store a few blocks from our houses. It looked nice on the outside, like a regular liquor store. The street it's located has stores lined up against one another, stores I don't recognize.

The inside had lots of glass bottles around on the shelves. Cases of beer were stacked along the walls, a glass room was filled with cigars. She waltzed right into the store like we weren't underage, I could lie and say I wasn't nervous;

But I was shitting bricks.

She walks over to an isle filled with different vodka bottles. Some were different brands, with different flavors.

"What flavor were you thinking?" She mumbles to me. There's so many options like peach, strawberry, vanilla, lemonade. A bottle with bright pink liquid inside catches my eye since the rest were clear. It was some sort of strawberry lemonade flavored drink, with a high alcohol percentage.

"What about this one?" I point to the bottle that looked the nicest to me. She grabs it off the shelf and inspects it.

"I was thinking the same thing." She turns around and smiles at me. She leads me to the register where I see a young boy. His hair was cut nicely with the top gelled to the side. His polo shirt was white, that he had unbuttoned.

"Little Daisy Lockwood, what're you doing here?" He greets her while scanning the bottle and ringing us up.

"Just shopping for our sleepover tonight. This is Rocky my new neighbor." He holds his hand out to shake, I accept it and say hi to him.

"I'm Matty, it's nice to meet you." He smiles at me.

"How's your whole Wesley situation?" She asks in conversation, I could tell they were friends.

"He's still pissed at me." He says shortly sitting in a chair behind the wood counter.

"Well you told him you loved him, but you won't be his boyfriend." Daisy speaks up.

Ouch that's got to hurt for whoever Wesley is.

"I know and I feel awful, but I'm leaving for Uni soon it's for the best for him." His voice cracks a little bit. I can tell he's hurting.

"But you love him?" I speak up in sympathy. I immediately make my eyes go wide at the fact I just asked him that. I definitely just crossed the line, I barely knew this guy.

"More than anyone. In another life we could work." He says, his eyes seem to fall and relax on his face.

"Mate just live in the moment more, stop thinking so far ahead." Daisy tells him.

Our conversation goes on for a little bit circling around Matty and his boy problems, until I get a phone call from my Aunt saying she's leaving for the night with my Uncle. They're seeing some old war movie that I kindly declined.

I told her Daisy and I wanted to have a sleep over, and she happily agreed. She just said to not be too loud over 12.

I think Aunt Nina is going to be a amazing guardian for me. Just to have that positive female presence I've lacked my whole life. My Mother would come back in the picture sometimes, the last time when I was 12. Since then the females I had around was my Dads occasional girlfriends since Aunt Nina was already moved to England long before the last appearance we all got from my Mother.

"Alright well since you're out we're just going to grab dinner if that's okay?" Her voice speaks through the phone pressed to my ear.

"Yeah you guys go have fun, we'll order a pizza or something." I smile.