"Why did you jump into the river anyway? Like, are you insane?" I laughed as I turned to him.
We were still sitting in Michael's car, the heat blasting all around us. We stayed like that for the past half hour, talking about anything from food to weird hair cuts. It wasn't like we had anywhere else to go. Besides, my parents thought we had gone off to watch the football game, so we had to kill time somehow.
"Why not?" Michael shrugged. "You gotta live a little."
"Well yeah, but if you had frozen you wouldn't be able to anymore."
"True, but I didn't."
"You're too much, man." I laughed and sat back in the passenger seat.
"What can I say? Life's about taking risks so I might as well take some now." He looked out of the driver's side window. "I came here, after all," he added under his breath.
That reminded me...
"Why did you choose to come here?"
He turned around to face me. "I told you already. My dad got a new job and - "
"No, I know," I said, cutting him off. "I meant, why did you agree to come here if it meant leaving your band?" I blurted out.
Michael's face suddenly dropped and I could tell he was at a loss for words. He whipped back around to face the window and stayed silent for a few moments. "How did you know about that?" he mumbled.
"How could I not?" I scooted closer to him on my seat. "You did follow me on Twitter, remember? I saw everything."
"Oh."
I opened my mouth to continue speaking but I didn't really know what to say. Was I supposed to say I was sorry? Apologizing wouldn't change his situation, and I wasn't even involved in it. I didn't know his friends, I wasn't even a fan of their precious little band.
"Don't feel sorry for me." His voice broke the silence.
"Why not?" I asked softly.
"Just... don't, okay? I don't need you to help me." He folded his arms across his chest.
"I don't need you to help me either, you know." That got him to finally turn around and look at me again. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not. I can tell you're not," he said.
"How can you tell if I'm okay or not, Michael? You don't even know me!" I cried, throwing my hands up. My eyes widened as I realized what I had just said and I was about to take it back until I realized that it was true. Michael and I had only just met and he was acting like we had been friends for years.
"I'm sorry," I said in a softer tone. "I didn't... I just thought - "
"It's fine," he said so I didn't need to keep trying to search for a clear way to say what I was feeling. "it's just hard."
"I know." He didn't need to say anything more. I guess I could relate to what he was going through. He was alone, I was alone. And being alone was never easy. Part of you wants someone to be there for you so you have someone to confide in but at the same time, you think you're better off by yourself.
It's a trust thing, really. I could't do it. Not anymore. Too many people had broken the trust I had for them and I can't let that happen again. That's why I didn't have a lot of close friends. If I got too close to someone, I freaked out in fear of them possibly betraying and leaving me. it was a cycle, and no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to break it. Everyone leaves you in the end. All anyone seemed to care about was themselves.
But not Michael, my subconcious forcibly said. That couldn't be true, though. He would just leave like everyone else had. I couldn't get attached to hi and he already knew too much about me. God, I was an idiot spilling all those details about the river to him.
Something he had said earlier that night came back to me, about giving things a chance. Maybe I should give Michael a chance. Just for these next few months before going off to college. I could do it, couldn't i?
I hadn't even noticed that Michael had been looking at himself in the rearview mirror this whole time to fix his hair. A quiet giggle escaped my lips as I smiled at his actions.
"What?" His eyes flicked over to me and then back to the mirror, a crooked smiles spreading across his face.
"You have a serious obsession with your hair."
"What color should I dye it next?"
"Next?"
His eyebrows knit together. "Yeah, I dye it all the time."
"Well if you keep dying it, eventually it's gonna fall out."
Michael turned towards me and held his arms out on either side of him. "Don't you think I'd look good as a baldy?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
"No, you'd look like a fetus!" I cried as I started cracking up at the thought of a very bald Michael Clifford.
"Oh, God!" He covered his face with his hands but laughed right along with me.
I was practically falling over in my seat from laughing so hard, and when I looked up I saw Michael's light green eyes peeking out from between his fingers as he shouted, "BOO!"
I shrieked and pushed him away from me but continued to laugh so hard my abs screamed in pain. I couldn't remember the last time I had genuinely laughed that hard. It meant that I was actually having fun for once, and with someone who I had just met, someone who I still wasn't sure would be worth even trying to be good friends with.
But maybe it could work out.
