Make My Way

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Aria's POV

Blake and I were sitting in his basement. We were next to each other on his couch, his arm around me, watching the original Iron Man. Auditions had just finished and his family wasn't home so we decided to go watch a movie.

It had been six weeks since he asked me to homecoming. The teddy bear he gave me was still sitting on my bed in my room. When he first said those words, even if Adrian had been the one to give him the idea, he had won me over.

I grabbed his wrist and looked at him. "Do you have any popcorn?"

"Maybe, but I'm not getting up to make it," he responded lazily.

"Well.... Where is it then?" I asked.

"In one of the cabinets in the kitchen," he told me distractedly.

"Well that's helpful," I mumbled under my breath as I lifted his arm off me and slowly trudged up the stairs to his kitchen.

I opened up each of the cupboards and dug around. Finding nothing, I started on the drawers. After almost ten minutes of searching, all I had found was a couple moldy hotdog buns, there and a half stale potato chips, and some jelly smeared across the bottom of one drawer.

"Blake," I called downstairs.

A delayed response came fifteen seconds later. "Huh?"

"I can't find any."

"Keep looking then."

I groaned in annoyance. "I've been looking for," I glanced at the clock, "fourteen minutes."

"So.... Your point is...?"

He was really starting to get on my nerves. "Come help me."

"You're the one who wanted popcorn, find it yourself."

"It's your house. Help me," I countered firmly.

"You're the woman. Isn't that what women are for? You know, cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids."

That was it. I broke. I marched down the stairs and looked him straight in the eye, but he didn't even acknowledge my presence. He was too enthralled in his little superhero show.

"You disgust me. Sexist pig. You think being a woman is all about cooking and cleaning?"

I had almost completely exploded when he spoke up, but not before pausing the tv. "Well it's probably easier than being a man."

"Oh yeah? Can you bleed for six days straight a month and not die?"

"Well, that's not my point. Just stop being so emotional."

"Emotional? Emotional?! You're telling me to stop being so emotional? At least I have emotions! You're a cold, heartless rock half the time. The past couple weeks, I nearly forgot you were my boyfriend," I fired back.

The tension was rising and I almost couldn't take it anymore.

"Geez, is it just your time of the month or something?" he taunted.

I just laughed. "I started my day in a pool of blood. Is that how you'd like to end yours?" When he didn't respond I took a deep breath and started forming some of the hardest words I'd ever said. "You know what? I'm not so sure this is going to work anymore." I turned around and walked out of his house.

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I sat on my bed in my room. It was 12:30 and I knew I should most probably get some sleep before I had to go to school the next day.