The Idea Game

Miles Together

I have always loved New York City. It’s so beautiful in every single way possible. The large buildings sprouting out of the ground all over the place like an urban forest. The extravagant streets that are known all over the world. Broadway. Fifth Avenue. Time Square. I’m going to go there some day. This mundane world in Athens, Ohio is… well, it’s mundane. There’s no exciting buildings or busy sidewalks or fancy streets. There’s rundown businesses and rude drivers and corn fields. A lot of corn fields.

There are two things that are nice about Athens though. One of them is my best friend, Tanner Jackson. We met in elementary school and we’ve been inseparable ever since. We suffered through the young years of people teasing us about having a crush on each other until we saw the light in middle school when it was normal for boys to be friends with girls and vice versa without it being a big deal. When my first boyfriend broke up with me, Tanner bought me so much ice cream that neither one of us could move for the rest of the day and when he didn’t make it onto the varsity basketball team his sophomore year, we watched so many horror movies in his room that I wanted to vomit. We are always there for each other.

The other beautiful thing about Athens is Stefan Williams. My boyfriend. We’ve been dating for five months now, which is a long time in high school time. It feels like it’s been two years already but we met at the beginning of this school year since we have calculus together and our teacher asked me to tutor him. I stopped tutoring him a while ago but it succeeded in bringing us together. He’s such a gentleman- buys me flowers sometimes, opens the car doors, pays for my food. I love Stefan. I mean, what do I know about love though, right? Not much. But I think that I love him so that’s good enough for me.

Anyway, Tanner and Stefan were the only things that keep me tethered to Athens while I continue to grasp onto my sanity. My parents aren’t exactly the best at being parents. My mom had me when she was sixteen and my dad was seventeen, so they weren’t ready for a child. For most of my childhood, I was tossed around between my two sets of grandparents but as I grew up, they just started leaving me home alone most of the time while they went out and partied. That hasn’t changed much at all. Sometimes, they take weekend trips to Vegas or some nearby casino. Other times, they just go out to a friend’s house to play poker and will stay out until crazy hours of the night. They have day jobs but once they clock out, they’re out with their friends. I’m not even sure they know that they even have a daughter anymore.

That’s what I’m doing right now, sitting at home alone. Tanner has a basketball game (I usually go to those but this one is an hour away and I didn’t feel like driving all the way there by myself) and I actually don’t know where Stefan is. It’s not like we keep tabs on each other or anything so I don’t always know where he is. I’m eating popcorn from a small bowl while I’m curled up in bed and watching one of my favorite movies: Mortal Instruments. So I’m in the middle of hating how gorgeous Lily Collins is when the doorbell rings. It’s ten o’clock at night so I know that it’s not my parents. They never come home before one in the morning at least.

I peek out my second story window to see if I can see a car in the driveway and smile when I see that it’s Stefan’s car parked in the driveway. I don’t know why he’s here but I’m always happy to see my wonderful boyfriend. I quickly throw a mint into my mouth just in case he wants to make out or something because I haven’t brushed my teeth since this morning and then I hurry down the stairs to answer the door.

I stop in front of the door, fix my hair a little bit, and then open it. Stefan is standing there with his blonde hair disheveled on his head and his blue eyes wide with something that seems to be troubling him. He’s a lot taller than me so I have to literally look up at him to see that his face looks definitely troubled.

“Hey,” I smile at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Um. I think that we need to talk,” He informs me, biting his bottom lip. In any other circumstance, this would be incredibly attractive but with this look on his face, it only digs a hole in the bottom of my stomach.