Stella's POV
Louis had got his Amazon Prime password from Oli and put on some movie about boxing and then promptly passed out in my bed. Having a brother is exhausting. I was pretty sure his goal in life now that we were home was to piss me off. But anyway, because he was asleep in my bed I decided I would go take over his bed. His room was basically in its own wing of the house so to get to it I had to walk downstairs, through the dining room, through the living room, past his office, past his music room, and by the time I got to this door I had talked myself out of it because this wing felt definitively like his space. My room in his house wasn't really my space but this space was his. I didn't want to intrude on his space. It was like the roof at the old house. It wasn't my place to be.
But apparently it was Ava's.
"What are you doing?!" Ava yelled, seeming like she was trying to scare me. I jumped and turned around.
"What are you doing?!" I complained. "I thought you were working with Flash."
"I was. Now I'm not. Now me and you and you and me and Flash and Louis are going to go shopping for Eras tour." She said.
"But..."
"It's not optional, Stella, we're going." She ordered, taking my arm.
"We can't go right now. I'm not dressed" I was wearing my very own Nike Pro shorts and a baggy black Spencer Sutherland t-shirt "and Louis is asleep." Ava pulled her phone out of her pocket.
"It's 3 in the afternoon." He pointed out.
"Yeah he came up there to harass me and fucking fell asleep." I explained.
"So that's why you're down here. Came to fuck shit up as revenge?" She asked.
"No. I mean, yes but no. That was the original point of me being here, but I don't want to fuck up Louis' space." I explained.
"Stella, you're so pure." Ava said, with an eye roll. "Come on." She said, and then grabbed my hand and started pulling me. I wanted to protest just based on principle, but I actually really did need to get an Eras tour outfit.
"Should we tell Louis we're going?" I asked.
"And wake him up? Absolutely not. He's a baby, he needs his rest."
"Isn't he like 30?"
"Shh... he's a baby." Ava commented. I laughed and followed her out to the driveway. I assumed I'd be driving on this adventure, but instead found Flash's truck parked outside.
"Wait, Flash is still here?"
"Yeah duh, he needs an Eras tour outfit too." Ava said. I don't know why I was dreading this shopping trip so much. It could be because I knew if I went shopping with Ava I wouldn't get much of a say in what I wore. Or maybe it was because she didn't ask if I wanted to go, she just told me that's what we were doing. Suddenly I regretted leaving my room. If I had just stayed with Louis I didn't have to make any decisions. Now it felt like I was deciding a lot more than just an Eras tour outfit.
//
Stella's POV
~
I loved school, but I think I loved summer even more. The summer meant me, unsupervised. I could go to Ava's - I just couldn't tell my mom about it - or I could go to Peter's or Harry's or I could roam around the city alone (which I actually never did, but I could if I wanted to) and my mom wouldn't know the difference. She'd just leave me at home with a kiss on the head and a warning to "be good" and I wouldn't see her again until after dinner. And as strict as she claimed to be about my eating, she never followed up on that. She never even asked if I was eating at all. It could be because she trusted me and she knew I spent most of my time at Aunt May's house, and Aunt May would never let me go hungry. Summers were pretty okay for me. The problem was, they were not a good time for Ava. She got to spend a lot more time with her Abuela which was good, but that meant less time with me and when she was with me, she didn't act the same.
"I'm bored of Barbies." She said suddenly, putting down the dolls we were playing with in my room.
"Okay. W-what should we play?" I asked.
"I don't know." She responded.
"We could go to Peter's." I suggested.
"And hang out with boys? Gross. I hate boys." She said, laying down on my floor.
"P-Peter's our friend." I said.
"Boys and girls can't be friends, Stella. Everyone knows that." She said.
"We've been f-friends with Harry and Peter since we were in first g-grade." I reminded her. We were about to go into 4th grade now, and my speech had gotten a lot better, and the affects of social skills was finally paying off in the way that I could hold back and forth conversations, which I guess was the goal?
"Well I don't wanna hang out with them. Let's do something else." She decided.
"Like what?"
"I don't know, you're the one with all the good ideas." She pointed out. It was a strange thing for her to point out, because Ava pretty much made all the decisions all the time.
"I am?" I asked.
"Yeah, duh! You're the smart one, I just follow you wherever you go." She said. That was so far from the truth. Ava practically had me on a leash the way I followed her every move. But if she thought I had good ideas maybe I should come up with some good ideas.
"We could go to the bodega and get ice cream." I suggested.
"No money." She said.
"Well, we can make money." I decided.
"Doing what? Robbing a bank?"
"No! We can... we can make a l-lemonade stand." I suggested.
"A lemonade stand? With what lemons?" Ava had just turned 10, while I was still 9, which wasn't that huge of an age gap but in this moment I felt like some little kid she was forced to hang out with. It made me want to cry, it made me want to shut down and never speak again. So I just stopped and looked at the floor. Ava sighed.
"I'm gonna go see if Abuela's awake." She decided. Then she got up and left me trying to figure out what the hell to do. She was getting bored with me. She was getting bored Barbies and playing and all the things that we'd done together our entire friendship. And if I didn't move on, she would leave me behind. And if she left me behind, I didn't know that I would have anything left. Maybe she was right. Maybe everyone did know girls don't play with boys, maybe Peter knew that too and didn't want to play with me either. If Peter didn't want to play with me, then Harry wouldn't either and then I'd be alone. All because I wanted to play Barbies while Ava wanted to do anything else. She had tasked me with coming up with something else to do, but I didn't have anything else in mind. My first thought was of those guys who stood on the side of the road with signs asking for money. I could do that. I could ask for money and use the money to buy ice cream for me and Ava. But if there was one thing I knew for sure it was that the city was a dangerous and scary place. It wasn't safe for me to be out there on my own
