The End of The Beginning

five

five
Wednesday, September 1st

"Hey, what's up?" she says. A lot is up. But I don't want to introduce my only maybe-friend to my family problems this early.

"Oh, nothing. Just got home. How were your classes today? I have so much to tell you."

"They were okay, but honestly really boring. All we did was go over a bunch of syllabuses. Hold on, let me change my shirt." She puts her phone down and I'm left staring at her white ceiling.

A few seconds silently pass."What's that stain up there?" I ask.

"Wow, how rude!" she yells from the other side of the room. "Don't you know you aren't supposed to point out flaws people can't change?" I freeze. Did I really just screw up my first friendship? "Hellooo?", she calls.

"I-I'm really sorry. I didn't thin-"

"Oh, my God. Wait, I'm joking." I hear fast-paced footsteps toward the phone. She's smiling when she picks it up. "I'm really joking, I don't care." she says sympathetically, "I think it's from my washer flooding upstairs." Oh, thank goodness.

I sigh a sigh of relief, followed by pure laughter over how ridiculously unserious that "fight" would have been. Malika laughs as she falls onto her bed, her hair making all kinds of shapes over the sheets.

"Hey, why are your sheets so colorful?" I tease.

"You've got a lot of questions don't you?" she says, smiling. Her teeth are straight and big, taking up just enough space in her smile. "I should just give you a room tour, stains and patterns included."

"Yes, please. I'd be so honored."

"I'd be just as honored to give you one if my legs didn't feel like jelly. Soccer was brutal."

"Wow, how rude!"

"Not funny." But she was grinning. Staring at her glossy hair on her sheets, I suddenly became aware of how messy mine was. I nonchalantly smoothed my curls down. "Stop staring," she teases.

"Um...I wasn't." This was embarrassing. Even though it shouldn't have been.

"You're so sweet but you're a horrible liar I hope you know that," she taunts.

"Aww, you think I'm sweet?" I feigned a cutesy smile.

"Talk about only seeing the bright side of things," she giggles. I laughed too, I couldn't help it. We talked for what felt like hours about everything. Our old schools, what sports we played, old friends. Eventually, she had to go and arrange cute classroom signs for her mom. I wished her luck.

"Sophia?" My mom called from upstairs.

"Yes?" I answered.

"Food's ready!" Ugh. I am not excited about this. It's just going to be Mom pretending everything is fine and Grandpa calling her out on it, which I admit is hilarious, but still. Not looking forward to it.