dedicated to]: GlowingRocks because yes, I value our friendship very much ;)
AND I UPDATED. DO YOU SEE IT.
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There comes a time in the day when I get emotional. Given, this is usually in the early hours of the morning, when my nose is shoved deep into some stupid romance novel I can't stop reading and the only light on is the glaring of my flashlight.
But let me just say.
When Cora Giuliana Tremont gets emotional, she gets emotional.
So there I was, bawling into some sappy novel about this weird girl who falls in love with a boy who sweeps the streets and lives in a cardboard box. And I was well on my way into the scene in the rain where the guy reveals that he loves the girl and his costume is sagging but her makeup is still oh-so-perfect because of course this was a story-
And then the phone rang.
I groaned. "What?"
"Cor-" I heard my friend's voice and was instantly alert. Taylor wasn't my best friend, but I'd known her since the first grade. She'd always been the one telling me that friends should always be there for each other, so I put aside my book and listened.
"Cora-", she hiccuped.
"What is it?" I whispered, gently, so I wouldn't wake my parents. They didn't know about my sleeping habits, and I decided it would be better to keep it that way. While my dad was pretty chill, my mom, coming from a long line of talkative, loud, and gesticulating Italians, would have no problem giving me an earful.
"Reed," she sobbed. "Reed broke up with me."
"What?" I sat up, shocked.
Reed Winters and Taylor O'Malley had been dating since last summer, when he asked her out during the Fourth of July fireworks. They were going steady, everyone thought, because after all, I was the one who set them up.
Taylor had come to me one summer's day at the pool, shy and bashful. I'd seen her around school, and she'd been in a few of my classes throughout the years.
“Hi,” she’d said, sitting gingerly on the chair next to mine.
“Hi, yourself,” I had chirped, surprised by Taylor’s visit. Like me, she usually came by the pool to soak in the sun, but as we hung out in different friend groups, we’d never talked outside of school. “What’s up?”
Taylor twirled locks of her auburn hair around each other, then unraveled them slowly. “Uh, you’re friends with Reed, right?”
I’d always been jealous of hair like Taylor’s. Voluminous and rich in color, it fell in perfect curls while mine hung limp, wet strands of thin brown. Speaking of which, it had been Reed who had, moments before, unceremoniously threw me over his shoulder and dumped me into the water, just because I happened to be dry.
“Yeah,” I murmured fondly, because it was true.
Reed Winters was my stupid, irrational, idiotic best friend, and I loved him for that.
Except so did the rest of Northshore’s population because of course, Reed was that one guy that got invited to all the parties, managed stellar grades, and held the title of president of the senior class, winning the election by a landslide. He charmed the entire female (and sometimes male) population and could make the grumpiest cat laugh, but much to his chagrin, couldn’t play a sport for his life. In short, Reed was adored by everyone-
