The Girl Next Door > jariana (COMPLETED)

ten

Ariana

I sat on Nadine's porch, overwhelmed. Nadine was talking a million miles per hour but I wasn't really paying attention. I kept staring in the direction of Justin's house. From where we sat we could see a portion the corner, his house and mine were out of view.

"Hey, Ari!" Nadine said loudly, snapping me back to attention. "What else did Justin say? Anything about me?" She was coming completely unraveled.

"Sorry to say, but no, nothing. I mean you were only there for a little bit before you took off." The excitement vanished from her face and the gleam in her eyes dulled. I felt bad, sort of. I would have felt worse if she didn't get attached to every cute guy that came along. It would only be a matter of time before someone replaced Justin. That's what I hoped, at least. Then I'd be home free.

Nadine took out her makeup bag and began inspecting her face with a MAC compact. She had beautiful green eyes. She was cute, in a childlike way, with a round face. Unlike me or our other best friend, Nicole Hamilton (the third of our little trio), Nadine had curves. She was 15 but her curves made her look 18 or older. She had the boobs we all envied.

My mind wandered back to Justin. His smell, how he looked without a shirt on, and the song he played for me the night before...

"Wait until you hear Justin play," I gushed. "You're gonna die."

"So other than all that, nothing else, not one other thing?" She sighed.

"Well, I went back over there and had, like, a heat stroke or something and when it happened he took me and laid me down on his bed."

Her mouth was hanging open. I tried to be nonchalant about it, but hearing myself say it out loud, no wondering she was looking at me like I was nuts.

"Don't look at me like that, you know how long I've known him," I said, ignoring her doubtful expression, "He's like a brother. Anyway, let me finish without you looking at me like I have shit on my face." I sighed heavily. "So, I'm lying there and some chick shows up and I think it was his girlfriend, her name is Rachel. He said she isn't his girlfriend, but I don't believe him, she certainly acted like she was." There, I said it. It came out smoothly enough. I only had to lie a little bit. No big deal, I told myself.

Nadine stood up and began walking.

"All right, enough, let's go and see what'll happen today," she said turning back to me with a wicked grin, "Maybe one of his band mates will be interested. You know they're all super cute."

I was relieved to hear those words fall from her overly glossed lips. "How long have you noticed them?" I asked, sincerely curious. "I mean, dude, I've known Justin forever and I've never even paid much attention."

I really was flabbergasted at how quickly she could turn off her like switch and move on to the next guy. Our short walk to the corner had me freaking out about seeing Matt sooner than I wanted with Justin being in the vicinity.

Nadine waved her arm at me obnoxiously. "I've noticed all of them for a long time, now come on."

We arrived at the corner and Matt was there with Grant and Nicole. I'd had a crush on Matt Squire for a long, long time. We were all best friends, really. When I laid eyes on Matt, to my surprise I got butterflies. Wait, were the butterflies for Matt or Justin? I wondered painfully. Justin and his band mates were hanging in his garage across the street from us.

"Hey Matt," I said cheerily, waving to him. Matt skated around doing tricks with his board. His blond hair flipped and waved around with each maneuver and I tried to focus on just him and the endearing little heart shaped scar right above his left eye. Angels must have been watching him that day and thought him too cute to leave an ugly shaped gash. Matt's eyes looked especially green this morning, they were shining. They used to draw me in, but not today. Thinking back to Justin's intense brown eyes and the way he looked at me when I was lying next to him. Those were the eyes I wanted to look into.