Test Drives ✓

iii. noroke

A / N: thanks Nevada for the comments, also thank you for the cover @inevitxble!

Note | this is not the most well thought out book in the world, nor do i plan to waste any of my time editing it. please do the both of us a favor and refrain from telling me how you think certain elements are irrational because i am not asking for your critique and i really can't be bothered with all the negativity in the comments.
DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T READ IT. simple as that.

xx tay

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s c e n e t h r e e :

n o r o k e

noroke (n.) • the way one constantly speak with fondness and enthusiasm about one's love; a boast of love conquests.

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I stood in the checkout line behind two chatty old ladies. They were an elderly couple, holding each other close, the same way Jake used to hold me. Of course, they weren't talking about the future like we had ― there was a point in life where you just had to realize that nothing new would happen and you were going to die ―

"Do you know what the temperature is right now," one of them asks me, turning around in line and interrupting my train of thought. "I'm not going out if it's cold outside."

"But Debbie," the other woman said, "we gotta get home anyway. We can't just sit here in the store all night."

They began to go back and forth with each other, making me smile as I went into my purse for my phone. I pulled at nothing making me realize that I left my phone with Peyton.

"Sorry," I apologized genuinely, "I left it with someone in my car."

I had expected them to be a bit disappointed by the news, but they seemed thoroughly amused by what I said. I didn't realize what I said to make them feel this way until the unnamed one said, "ooh, is it a boy? You look like you have a boyfriend."

"Patty, it doesn't have to be a boy, there are other genders out there," Debbie said. "She could be dating a nonbinary person for all we know."

I couldn't fight the blush that crept onto my face. I wasn't concerned about the fact that Peyton could've not been a boy, he and I both knew that, but it also wasn't an issue. The main reasons behind my blush being that I wasn't dating him and also because my sexual life, as a minor, shouldn't be up for discussion between adults.

I smiled, trying not to be rude as I took a step back and out of their conversation. With nothing to do besides wait patiently, I began to do so, taking a look around the store. The aesthetic they were going for seemed to have been soft greys and subdued lime greens, but the only evidence of that were tiles on the far wall of the store that weren't close to the door. The rest of the tiles were faded and stained brown from flooding, and the walls were cracked in the lower areas as well. It was then that I noticed how the building was built on a slant and how Peyton Evers was standing outside of the window, waving my phone in his hand.

I looked at him as if he had sprouted wings from his back and horns from his head. But he looked a comparable level of bizarre at this moment, with his old school shirt wrapped around his bleeding arm, already soaking it up, while his free hand held my phone in it. His body was damp from the rain coming down overhead, but only slightly. He seemed to be mouthing something to me, but I couldn't read lips so he was basically wasting energy.