"Alright, lets start heading to your house." Aubrey says, and grabs my hand, giving it a light tug, pulling me along with her.
I nod, and let her lead me. She keeps her hand around mine, and through the trembles in her fingers, in the unrealized tightness of her grasp, I realize that no matter how different we are, we are also incredibly similar, and will always be this way. She is my mirror opposite, she is outgoing, loud, ambitious, strong, and while she's always hung around the popular girls, and was popular herself, she never cared that much about what people thought of her. On the other hand, I am shy, quiet, and weak in all ways, weak willed, weak mentally, even weak physically.
But we both have shaky hands and anxiety. We both are scared of loosing those who we love most, and we're both scared of truly embracing our true selves. We both hate our family, but change is scary, so we're both scared of the thought of anything changing, even for the better. Especially for the better.
When we reach my house, I barge in without knocking. After all, it is my house, so I'm sort of entitled to do so. Polly, as usual, is sitting on the couch, the tv on.
"Polly, can I borrow some money? Aubrey and I need it." I ask politely.
She nods, and with her eyes still fixed to whatever show is airing on the tv, she says, "yes, of course! You should know where the money is by now, right Basil? You're 16, after all."
I nod, and open a drawer where I find a pretty good sized bag of cash. I carefully pull out 10 dollars, which is probably more than enough for flowers, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I then pull out another 10 dollar bill, just incase we want to get pizzas.
I hesitate for a moment, feeling the two soft bills within my fingers, and glance back at Aubrey, and in a second, a million thoughts run through my head. About just how privileged I am, about how sure, I can't completely fix her and all her issues by passing her a couple dollars, but surely, every bit counts, doesn't it? I have the opportunity to at least slightly improve her life, and I should take that opportunity.
Without thinking anymore, I grab five 20 dollar bills, and stuff them in my pocket. Neither Aubrey or Polly notices, that, or they just don't care enough to say anything to me about it, which is an equally plausible situation.
I close the bag, and swiftly close the drawer. I wave goodbye to Polly, who doesn't even look up at me, lightly grab Aubrey's hand, and the two of us walk out the door, and down the street.
After walking a fair bit, we finally get to Fix-It.
"Well, you're the flower boy, you can pick out the flowers." Aubrey says to me, smiling.
I smile back at her, and tell her, "The flowers are for Mari, and you're also Mari's friend. You should pick them out with me."
She nods, and together, we pick out 5 different flowers, and walk up to the cash register.
"Wait!" Aubrey exclaims.
"What is it?" I ask her.
"I didn't see it earlier, but they have a lily of the valley. We have to buy it." Aubrey tells me, picking up one.
Without speaking, I add the sixth flower to the group of flowers, and pay.
Aubrey and I make the walk to the church, and set down the flowers in front of Mari's freshly cleaned grave.
"Well, it's almost lunch, and I grabbed money to get food. We could get pizza, if you want." I offer.
"Yeah, well, pizza is really the only thing around here, isn't it?"
I laugh, and then realize something amazing we could do.
"What if we just picked up sandwiches from the pizza place and ate them at faraway park?" I ask.
Aubrey enthusiastically nods, and we walk to the pizza place, order our sandwiches, and then make our way to the park. Without even putting thought into it, like metal to a magnet, we gravitate towards the secret hangout spot.
Aubrey kicks off her dollar store sandals, and dips her feet in the lake. I sit beside her, but keep my socks and shoes on, because that's just easier, and I'm not really all that warm. We unwrap the sandwiches, and eat them together.
A couple bites into my sandwich, I put it down on my lap, and pull out the money for Aubrey. She looks at me, and then back to her sandwich, apparently not questioning what I'm doing with 100 dollars.
"It's for you." I say, and hand her the bills.
She pauses for a moment, and looks in my eyes, and extends her hand. I put the cash in her hand, and she takes it, and looks at it, then at me, and her eyes are wet, nearly teary.
"Basil, seriously, 100 dollars? I- why?" She asks, shocked.
"Cause I could." I tell her.
She carefully puts the money in her pocket, and then hugs me, knocking my sandwich out of my lap, onto the dirty ground. It's okay, I wasn't hungry anyway.
I hug her back, and stroke my fingers through her long pink hair. It isn't long before she pulls away from my hug, and that's okay. She leaves my embrace happy, not teary eyed, not a mess.
"Basil, seriously, I don't need the money, it's okay." She tells me.
I tell her, "I didn't give you the money because you needed it, I know you're not going to die if I don't give you it, but I wanted to give you it. I gave it to you because I wanted to."
She smiles at me, and takes a big bite from her sandwich, and right then, she notices that she has knocked over my food.
Aubrey sighs in frustration, "Shit, sorry, I knocked over your food hugging you, didn't I? I'm so sorry, you gave me money and then I do this..."
"I wasn't hungry anyway." I say, and smile at her, trying to lighten the mood.
She smiles back, and takes another bite.
(1026 words)
a/n- pls help im gonna be at a christian camp for a while....
