Everything We Always Were

Nineteen: Choices

When James arrives the next morning, I'm barely ready to go.

My alarm had not gone off (it probably did and I just slept through it), and I was behind. The vibrating in my pocket didn't help the stress as I hurriedly brushed my hair.

All I needed to do was find shoes and not forget the cash on the counter.

The hunt for shoes takes way longer than needed and after finding 5 shoes, all with no mate, I finally find a pair of Converse and slide them on, almost tripping multiple times on my mad dash to the kitchen.

The cash is folded nicely with a sticky note on top, which I don't bother reading now as I shove the whole thing into my backpack and book it out the door.

Halfway down the sidewalk, I remember I didn't lock the door so I fumbled to send my dad a text, letting him know for when he woke up in an hour or so.

"Ready for this drive? You can nap if you need to," James says, looking cheery as I catch my breath and put my seatbelt on.

"Yeah, I probably will,"

"No worries."

The drive is a little over 2 hours and I do end up falling asleep less than 30 minutes in. It's not my fault that I only got a few hours of sleep (it's one hundred percent my fault).

When I wake up, James is sipping on a gas station soda cup, light music on the speakers.

"Good morning, feeling refreshed?"

"Yeah..." I eye the cup, taking notice of my dry throat.

"There's a bag with tea and some chips at your feet," It's like he can read my mind.

A smile makes its way onto my face as I rummage through the plastic bag and end up chugging the entire bottle of sweet tea in one go.

"Jesus, take a breath," James laughs.

"You're in a good mood,"

"Sorry, should I not be?" He asks, eyebrows raised.

"No no, I just haven't seen you this happy in a while."

"I guess I'm just happy that I actually get to spend time with you," He shrugs, turning on his blinker as he slows for a stop sign. "We are almost to Portland, do you want to look up what stores to start at?"

5 hours later, James and I were almost back in Savannah.

It was comfortably quiet 5 hours of shopping and having genuine fun together. We didn't talk about CJ or Kyler or really anything. It was all about Halloween and the decorations. We stopped at a small cafe for a light dinner and then ended up stopping at a McDonald's on the way home because we were still hungry.

30 minutes left in the drive now and James clears his throat.

"So, you and CJ are still together?"

Finally, here it is. I was waiting for him to ask since the last few times we talked about CJ, he was telling me I needed to break up with him. "Yeah, we are about to hit one year,"

"Congrats," He has a smile on his face but his tone doesn't seem genuine anymore.

"Yeah, we went to his parent's beach house, it's not far from Roni's," I explain and he nods.

"Are you guys still fighting like before?"

It gives me actual joy to say, "No, we haven't fought much recently,"

"Did you get past whatever was causing it all before?"

"That's an interesting question," It was. What did start all the fighting? To be fully transparent, it was James. CJ was jealous, and overbearing when it came to James. I remember thinking that he had to be crazy to feel insecure about James. James is just my friend.